News The US government banned Nvidia's fastest gaming GPU from China — chipmaker pulls RTX 4090 listings due to AI concerns, but leaves RTX 6000 Ada

[Admin]

Nvidia no longer sells the GeForce RTX 4090 in China, but the data center and workstation-oriented RTX 6000 Ada still seems to be available online.

The US government banned Nvidia's fastest gaming GPU from China — chipmaker pulls RTX 4090 listings due to AI concerns, but leaves RTX 6000 Ada : Read more

 

[stonecarver]

It seems like this AI world wide power struggle is a frighting reality.

One can see the good to man kind but in reality so was modern medicine where some meds are a $1000 a pill. Why $$$$

Another layer to add to man kind. $$$$

Funny all I can think about is please don't put a AI controlled CPU on my toaster.

But it is scarry that most of everything we do is believe who we a dealing with is a real person on the other side of the phone. But in reality that's just our own inner circle of family/ coworkers/ freeway traffic and grocery shopping the whole rest of the world for all we will know can be ran by Ai.




Skynet is learning but who's in charge of Skynet is in charge.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Yeah, this really gonna work. Just like Steam Deck is available everywhere in the world despite haven't "officially" been released outside of only few countries. Those who want/need this stuff can certainly get it despite being just common folks and here we are talking about multi-billion dollar corporations or perhaps even governments. 😉

 

[vinay2070]

So technically this should reduce the price of 4090 worldwide, but Huang will some how make sure it wont happen.

 

[Joseph_138]

So technically this should reduce the price of 4090 worldwide, but Huang will some how make sure it wont happen.

Except that it won't. The Chinese will use a third party country, that nVidia is still allowed to ship to, to get them, in the same way that Russia is circumventing the sanctions.

 

[bit_user]

GPU	RTX 6000 Ada Generation	GeForce RTX 4090
Memory	48 GB GDDR6 w/ ECC	24 GB GDDR6X
Total Processing Power (FP16/BF16)	5,828	5,280
Performance Density	9.57	8.66
CUDA Cores	18,176	16,384
FP32	91.06 TFLOPS	82.58 TFLOPS
L2 Cache	96 MB	72 MB
Power	300W	450W
Form Factor	2-slot FHFL	3.5-slot
Interface	PCle Gen4 x16: 64 GB/s	PCle Gen4 x16: 64 GB/s

I find it interesting the "Total Processing Power" is virtually identical, yet it has 10.9% more fp32 TFLOPS. The additional performance is very interesting, in light of using just 2/3rds of the power.

Also, that extra 24 MB of L2 cache looks pretty nice.

Finally, the conventional way to specify PCIe bandwidth is uni-directional, in which case it should be just 32 GB/s. I'm assuming these numbers were taken from Nvidia, who seems to like inflating their specs at every opportunity. However, the reason why uni-dir is better is that you almost never have perfectly symmetrical data movement in both directions. Anyway, the more useful number is the uni-dir number.

 

[bit_user]

Except that it won't. The Chinese will use a third party country, that nVidia is still allowed to ship to, to get them,

This will increase prices for Chinese buyers, due to having to pay middle men + more shipping & duties. Higher prices usually translates into lower demand. As a result, we should expect to see lower sales volumes going to China, which theoretically could impact pricing & availability elsewhere in the world.

That also explains why I think even leaky sanctions aren't necessarily pointless, depending on the goal.

 

[bit_user]

But in reality that's just our own inner circle of family/ coworkers/ freeway traffic and grocery shopping the whole rest of the world for all we will know can be ran by Ai.

1. Your family and coworkers can be using AI agents. This could range from something like a Siri assistant, who's scheduling a meeting or dinner reservation on behalf of them, to a Microsoft Office Copilot-written email they send you.
2. Freeway traffic? Are you serious? Have you not seen the news about all the collisions & even deaths caused by Tesla's autopilot? Just because you see a person sitting behind the steering wheel doesn't mean they're the one driving!

 

[stonecarver]

Freeway traffic? Are you serious?

I was thinking about the guy three lanes over flipping me off. But your right darn Tesla's.

 

[stonecarver]

Your family and coworkers can be using AI agents. This could range from something like a Siri assistant, who's scheduling a meeting or dinner reservation on behalf of them

You know my wife his been being nicer to me on her texts. Maybe Ai has it's place.

I was wondering why we stopped text like this " from Her" Drop dead " me back" you first..........😈

 

[williamcll]

What's stopping anyone just going to buy them off from taiwan?

 

[scottslayer]

So technically this should reduce the price of 4090 worldwide, but Huang will some how make sure it wont happen.

There is no way this would reduce prices when Nvidia was just straight up dumping 4090s onto Chinese companies/government. Nvidia will just scale back production (if they have not already done so from the multiple rumors) in preparation for the upcoming SUPERs.
Also lets be real here, its Nvidia.

 

[bit_user]

What's stopping anyone just going to buy them off from taiwan?

I'm pretty sure Taiwanese resellers won't sell to someone wanting to buy in bulk, unless they present a shipping manifest for some allowed destination. Even for someone traveling there to buy a small quantity, I wonder if there might be a customs check on the Taiwanese side, to ensure you're not trying to leave with any contraband.

 

[newtechldtech]

I'm pretty sure Taiwanese resellers won't sell to someone wanting to buy in bulk, unless they present a shipping manifest for some allowed destination. Even for someone traveling there to buy a small quantity, I wonder if there might be a customs check on the Taiwanese side, to ensure you're not trying to leave with any contraband.

It is very easy to open a Taiwanese company inside Taiwan to buy whatever they want and then smuggle them into China.
and if the Chinese Government is behind it , I think it will be hard to stop that. be sure that they already have Taiwanese custom agents already who will "pass" them. or maybe just by sea smugglers.

 

[TertianIvy]

Just like in the Google ban case, I'd threaten to move the company out of the country and continue business as usual.

 

[bit_user]

Just like in the Google ban case, I'd threaten to move the company out of the country and continue business as usual.

Is that what happened? I don't think that would work. I think the government's basis for these bans is that the products are using IP with US patents & inventors - thus the government can assert control over it via eminent domain.

Yeah, if a company existed entirely outside the US, it can just ignore whatever the US government says. However, that means it can't have any operations here, nor sell any products here. That's effectively impossible for Nvidia. Leaving the US market would be way worse than leaving all of the sanctioned markets, not to mention all of the brainpower & knowledge they'd lose by closing their US-based offices.

And if you violate the sanctions and set foot in US jurisdiction or have any property here, you (or it) could potentially be seized. That's what happened with Huawei's CFO, and she wasn't even in the US when she was detained. The only difference might be that Huawei allegedly violated sanctions on Iran, which might've been UN sanctions. If they were just US sanctions, maybe Canada would've have held her, though the reason they did was ultimately to extradite her to the US for trial - not to try her themselves or in the ICC.

 

[TertianIvy]

Is that what happened? I don't think that would work. I think the government's basis for these bans is that the products are using IP with US patents & inventors - thus the government can assert control over it via eminent domain.

Yeah, if a company existed entirely outside the US, it can just ignore whatever the US government says. However, that means it can't have any operations here, nor sell any products here. That's effectively impossible for Nvidia. Leaving the US market would be way worse than leaving all of the sanctioned markets, not to mention all of the brainpower & knowledge they'd lose by closing their US-based offices.

And if you violate the sanctions and set foot in US jurisdiction or have any property here, you (or it) could potentially be seized. That's what happened with Huawei's CFO, and she wasn't even in the US when she was detained. The only difference might be that Huawei allegedly violated sanctions on Iran, which might've been UN sanctions. If they were just US sanctions, maybe Canada would've have held her, though the reason they did was ultimately to extradite her to the US for trial - not to try her themselves or in the ICC.

The only reason I'd go this way is to show the suits that I can do whatever. From the items POV, drugs get there every day, so why not GPUs? People are inventive.

If I am to open a group in the US, I'd be very careful and consider your statements. A looot of loopholes will surround my business.

 

[bit_user]

From the items POV, drugs get there every day, so why not GPUs? People are inventive.

Unlike drugs, GPUs for AI, self-driving, consoles, etc. are used by businesses, which are subject to the laws where they operate. They cannot afford to trade in contraband. The other thing to consider is how much markup there is on contraband. Businesses don't like when their input costs go up, as it hurts margins and ultimately sales volume, due to higher product prices.

If I am to open a group in the US, I'd be very careful and consider your statements. A looot of loopholes will surround my business.

Again, it's not just opening a business, but also doing business in the US, including selling your products or services.

The easier thing to do is not get sanctioned in the first place, nor have an expectation that you can sell anything to anyone, no matter what sort of misbehavior they're getting up to.

In the long run, China wasn't going to keep buying Nvidia GPUs forever, anyhow.

 

[COLGeek]

Please focus on the technological aspects of this topic, not politics. Thank you.

 

[ChasUGC]

I don't see how a computer graphics card is going to take over the world with AI. Maybe I'm missing something unless this can be installed in an android body with some unheard of android appendages and run by Skynet in some sort of self aware computer system, that if existed wouldn't need a gaming graphics card. Or maybe they think that the NPC gaming people in some computer game will become self aware with this card, and take over the world becoming Skynet. I just don't get it, but maybe that's just me.