News Nvidia says H20 export controls didn’t stop China’s AI progress — claims 'they only stifled U.S. economic and technology leadership

[Admin]

Nvidia shared an opinion piece by Aaron Ginn, co-founder of AI company Hydra Host, stating that despite the U.S.’s export controls on Nvidia’s H20 chips, China continued to achieve AI breakthroughs.

Nvidia says H20 export controls didn’t stop China’s AI progress — claims 'they only stifled U.S. economic and technology leadership : Read more

 

[Zaranthos]

I'll take information Nvidia shares related to them making mind bending profits if they can sell more product to one of the largest economies in the world with a grain of salt. Nvidia obviously wants to make as much money as possible, which is fine, but there are clearly geopolitical reasons related the the race to AI dominance driving this. Whether it's working or not is up for debate but there are clearly reasons it's being done.

The growing pains of the AI dominance race aren't all fun though. Who thinks spending nearly $2000 to get a high end gaming GPU that gobbles massive amounts of ever increasingly expensive electricity is fun(electricity prices also driven by AI)? Then if you do manage to afford buying it you have to worry about it catching fire and burning up your gaming rig. Hopefully the good outweighs the bad as AI continues through the growing pains.

 

[jlake3]

The WSJ op-ed is paywalled, so I can't see his exact words, but it seems like there's an attempt to equate Nvidia's leadership and influence with U.S. leadership and influence. While Nvidia is a US-based company, they employ a much smaller number of people than something like automotive and the manufacturing all happens offshore, so very few Americans feel like they've got a stake in it or are benefiting from Nvidia's insane profits. Many feel like these profits are coming at their expense, even.

CUDA is not "America's full-stack platform", it's Nvidia's. If the most advanced models get developed elsewhere but are dependent on buying Nvidia hardware fabbed overseas and sold at monopoly prices to run them and the US government can't/won't apply export controls, then the US won't have collectively "Won the AI race", Nvidia will have won the AI race.

 

[hotaru251]

Chipmaker believes that "America’s full-stack platform must remain the global standard.”

corpo says its product needs to be standard.

literally any company mentality as they want to make more and more $ as they are part of that standard.

 

[Greywulffcvg]

Here is Ginn's WSJ letter:

Matt Pottinger, Liza Tobin and I share a common goal: The U.S. must win the artificial-intelligence race. Yet their argument for doubling down on failed GPU export controls falls apart under scrutiny and real-world conditions.

In their Aug. 11 letter, they write that “the controls on Nvidia’s H20 chips appear to have been working until CEO Jensen Huang’s lobbying secured a reversal.” But Nvidia hasn’t shipped H20s to China since the ban. The Commerce Department approved exports this week under a new deal, which returns 15% of sales revenue to the American people. As I noted in my op-ed, Z.AI’s breakthroughs rely on more-advanced chips than the H20, and DeepSeek released new models despite U.S. policy.

Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Tobin suggest that Nvidia’s product can be reverse-engineered easily. Yet the company is more like Apple or Boeing than Intel or AMD, with its value in its software stack and integrated design. Without CUDA—the company’s computing platform—Nvidia hardware is an expensive paper weight, like an iPhone without iOS. Buying a PlayStation doesn’t guarantee that you have games to play.

Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Tobin likewise confuse buying a semiconductor with making one. Citing a foundry equipment maker as proof that China can replicate Nvidia is like saying owning a PlayStation means you’re Sony. This oversimplification is a trillion-dollar category mistake.

Both lament the Trump administration’s repeal of the Biden-era “diffusion rule”—which lumped Portugal and Switzerland in with Yemen and Ukraine for GPU access—and oppose Mr. Trump’s policy of exporting American AI. Yet to lead in this space we need policies rooted in technical reality and strategy, not ones that equate sandy beaches and luxury watches with failed states and war zones that weaken American soft and economic power around the world.

Aaron Ginn

Boulder, Colo.

 

[atmapuri]

If you zone out 75% of the world market to keep your leadership, you create a safe-haven for competition that will serve the market 4x your size. You basically show them: "This is what you need to do and now you try it, we will not interfere. "

 

[Zizi Mai]

Frankly, it doesn't matter anymore. The Chinese doesn't need the H20 chips & decision already made by the Chinese government to their countrymen not to buy Nvidia chips out of national security.