NVIDIA, AMD & Others Face A.I. Chip Licensing Pressure – Report – Wccftech
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A fresh report from Bloomberg claims that artificial intelligence chip sales by NVIDIA and AMD to the Middle East are facing slower approval from the US as part of a bid to stop advanced semiconductor technologies from being used by the Chinese military. The Commerce Department denied similar assertions last year, and today’s report comes after Microsoft President Brad Smith warned in an interview that his firm’s billion dollar initiative in the Middle East could eventually lead to the transfer of advanced chips.
A Commerce representative told the publication that the organization would continue to evaluate deals for advanced technologies shipped worldwide to protect the American technology ecosystem.
The latest report follows NVIDIA’s 10-Q SEC filing in August 2023, which indicated an added interest by US government officials in its Middle Eastern sales. NVIDIA’s products are among the world’s top performers for advanced computing applications. Following the SEC filing, US officials denied blocking any such sales but avoided commenting on whether they had adopted any new rules to regulate them.
Yesterday’s report from Bloomberg quotes, which surfaced late in the afternoon, quotes unidentified sources to share that US government license approvals to firms such as NVIDIA and AMD have slowed down. A Commerce Department spokesperson contacted by the publication did not comment on any potential slowdown, but shared that the priority behind any approval process is safeguarding US national security interests.
Today’s report follows a Reuters exclusive from earlier this week, which revealed that US members of Congress were worried about the national security implications of a Middle Eastern deal involving big tech A.I. firm Microsoft.
NVIDIA’s 2023 SEC filing had explicitly stated that the firm did not “anticipate that additional export restrictions, if adopted, would have an immediate material impact on our financial results.” It did add that the long term implications of the headwinds could hamper “results and competitive position.”
NVIDIA and AMD, both of whose products purportedly struggle to receive approvals, declined to comment. The two are among the world’s leading developers of GPUs that process artificial intelligence workloads, and representatives from Intel and California based startup Cerebras also refused comment. Intel’s Gaudi chip has made quite a splash in the industry due to its ability to compete with NVIDIA’s leading edge H200 and H100 artificial intelligence accelerators
Last year’s NVIDIA filing mentioned increased scrutiny for the H100 chips. These have since been upgraded, and a custom NVIDIA H100 for Chinese use marketed as H800 has also been banned from being exported to China.
Advanced GPUs, particularly those for A.I. applications, can allow users to compute vast amounts of data to generate insights. Some use cases cover intelligence analysis, where the software uses existing inputs to generate mission critical insights.
The Commerce representative said the US remains “committed to working with our partners in the Middle East and around the world to safeguard our technological ecosystem.” Earlier efforts have also tried to limit the spread of Chinese 5G equipment in Europe, along with restricting Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC from selling advanced chips to technology giant Huawei.
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