News Nvidia writes off $5.5 billion in GPUs as US gov't chokes off supply of H20s to China

[Admin]

Apparently, Jensen Huang's $1 million dinner with Donald Trump did not help to ease U.S. government's concerns over H20 GPUs exports to China.

Nvidia writes off $5.5 billion in GPUs as US gov't chokes off supply of H20s to China : Read more

 

[A Stoner]

Seems overblown, unless $5.5 billion is the loss they have for selling these to someone else who would want them. The way processors are as limited as they are, I am quite certain that these can find homes in the friendly western world.

 

[SparklyIO]

Seems overblown, unless $5.5 billion is the loss they have for selling these to someone else who would want them. The way processors are as limited as they are, I am quite certain that these can find homes in the friendly western world.

Its a loss in accounting terms. The loss is due to the fact that the H20 GPUs are no longer saleable at their original price, and this is their reduced value. It is a non-cash expense that reduces profitability for the quarter. Still an asset in inventory for sale, though.
And you're right, I'm sure they'll find an AI/crytpo farm somewhere to roam free and burn carbon.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

Also, China can (and does) buy supply from other countries, even with the full datacenter products. It's not like Nvidia is putting in controls in the rack system to shut down if it is running in a specific country.

 

[bit_user]

Also, China can (and does) buy supply from other countries, even with the full datacenter products. It's not like Nvidia is putting in controls in the rack system to shut down if it is running in a specific country.

If the AI Diffusion program is being implemented, then it will be a non-trivial challenge for China to get very many of them.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...s-most-of-the-chipmakers-ai-gpus-are-affected
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[nogaard777]

The best part is seeing another report on this stating Nvidia was already hard at work to design a new SKU just below the government's new limits, when the H40 was already exactly that. Nvidia badly wants that China money and they'll work overtime to give China the fastest possibly GPUs they can legally.

As well as illegally seeing as how we've already seen reports that after the previous restrictions went into place Singapore's orders magically inflated by 7000% as Nvidia sent them off and looked the other way. Nothing is going to change until the US government goes after and fines NVIDIA to stop it instead of just placing regulation that Nvidia sidesteps.

Neither Nvidia or AMD have any qualms about selling out their country to make a buck.

 

[bit_user]

As well as illegally seeing as how we've already seen reports that after the previous restrictions went into place Singapore's orders magically inflated by 7000% as Nvidia sent them off and looked the other way. Nothing is going to change until the US government goes after and fines NVIDIA to stop it instead of just placing regulation that Nvidia sidesteps.

As I linked above, the AI Diffusion program was designed to mitigate that sort of thing. We'll see how well it works, if it ever goes into effect.

 

[2Be_or_Not2Be]

If the AI Diffusion program is being implemented, then it will be a non-trivial challenge for China to get very many of them.

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https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...s-most-of-the-chipmakers-ai-gpus-are-affected​

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Interesting - of course, with all of the security measures/safeguards & people (like investigators) being cut (and cut out) by DOGE in the US, it's almost a guarantee that pretty much won't be implemented or enforced.

Even that article says: "In Tier 2 countries, entities can import up to 1,700 Nvidia H100 GPUs (or equivalent) without a license, and these do not count toward national AI chip limits." Just like Amazon amassed tons of generic 6-character "sellers", seems like the same would happen in those "Tier 2" countries for "buyers" of the bigger DGX/HGX/etc. systems - they'll just resell it to the restricted entities.

 

[bit_user]

Even that article says: "In Tier 2 countries, entities can import up to 1,700 Nvidia H100 GPUs (or equivalent) without a license, and these do not count toward national AI chip limits." Just like Amazon just amassed tons of generic 6-character "sellers", seems like the same would happen in those "Tier 2" countries for "buyers" of the bigger DGX/HGX/etc. systems - just reselling it to other restricted entities.

We don't know how tight the export restrictions in those countries are. The tier-2 designation might depend on their ability to do some of the work to prevent flow-through to tier-3. Their incentive would be staying off the tier-3 list, themselves.

Also, if lots of mysterious buyers in a tier-2 country appeared out of nowhere, maybe it would attract a response of some kind, like lowering that limit.

You're probably right that this won't come into effect. One reason I think so is because access to AI GPUs might be seen as a negotiating chip.