News US govt warns that sanctions swerving GPUs will fall under their 'control the very next day

[Admin]

The US Commerce Secretary, Gina Raimondo, is determined to stop cutting-edge AI chips from getting into China's hands and has warned companies that seek to follow the letter but not the spirit of the law.

US govt warns that sanctions swerving GPUs will fall under their 'control the very next day : Read more

 

[peachpuff]

Poor jensen, he just wants a few more leather jackets.

 

[Bluoper]

While the actual need to stop ai chips from ending up in China is debatable, it would be nice to actually see the US government crack down on big tech companies and prevent them from bending the rules.

 

[ingtar33]

While the actual need to stop ai chips from ending up in China is debatable, it would be nice to actually see the US government crack down on big tech companies and prevent them from bending the rules.

this is just an aggressive expansion of the fab wars between the West and China. AI just created another "possible" stake in a game of high stakes trade policy.

I predicted months ago the USA would look very badly on Nvidia's skirting of the law on this issue, this isn't an empty trade policy for companies to skirt, but the AI aspect has turned it into a national security issue. Nvidia is playing with fire right now, and they're going to find a way to get all gpu exports to china being banned if they're not careful. (for both nvidia and amd)

Granted maybe that's the outcome that Nvidia is hunting for, but it seems awful reckless. My only guess is the decision makers at nvidia don't realize how serious the USA is taking this issue. Previously with other tech restrictions to china (mostly related to fabs and fab technology) the laws were sorta lax, I mean it was an issue of national interest, but it wasn't one of national security; though it was for Taiwan. Taiwan had long ago identified the Fab interests in the USA, and positioned themselves to be strong partners in the enforcement of these trade limits, knowing that if they made themselves an indispensable ally the USA would raise little issue with Taiwan's own Fab industry AND would have one more reason to protect Taiwan from Chinese aggression.
Unless the leadership of nvidia are madmen, the likelyhood is they considered this an extension of the fab/fab tech export restrictions. not realizing this was a national security issue.

That or they're so greedy they don't believe the law applies to them.

 

[helper800]

That or they're so greedy they don't believe the law applies to them.

The 'laws' that public companies follow are of maximum profit while not breaking any laws themselves. Can you really blame any publicly owned company following their creed without implicating free enterprise corporatism?

 

[Bluoper]

The 'laws' that public companies follow are of maximum profit while not breaking any laws themselves. Can you really blame any publicly owned company following their creed without implicating free enterprise corporatism?

The problem is that they do try very hard to make the laws put in place non applicable to them without trying to conform to the laws. While yes this is because of maximum profit, its mostly because they don't get any repercussions for what they are doing.

 

[helper800]

The problem is that they do try very hard to make the laws put in place non applicable to them without trying to conform to the laws. While yes this is because of maximum profit, its mostly because they don't get any repercussions for what they are doing.

There are no repercussions because what they are doing is largely not illegal. We can talk about ethics, but that would never end and I am sure we are close to being on the same page.

 

[Bluoper]

There are no repercussions because what they are doing is largely not illegal. We can talk about ethics, but that would never end am I am sure we are close to being on the same page.

I'm mostly talking about governmental lobbying.

 

[atomicWAR]

I'd skip this back and forth game if I were the american pols and just ban all gpu/ai sales (last 3 gens as applicable) from Nvidia, AMD, Intel and Cereberus to China. This skirting restrictions has disgusted me. It may be legal but it is wrong ethically. And I mean it's not like China doesn't have access to their home grown gpus/ai chips. So were not killing their pc gaming/ai markets outright. Heck maybe it would even help their drivers progress faster (mtt s80 is already doing well imho on driver progression).

 

[helper800]

I'd skip this back and forth game if I were the american pols and just ban all gpu/ai sales (last 3 gens as applicable) from Nvidia, AMD, Intel and Cereberus to China. This skirting restrictions has disgusted me. It may be legal but it is wrong ethically. And I mean it's not like China doesn't have access to their home grown gpus/ai chips. So were not killing their pc gaming/ai markets outright. Heck maybe it would even help their drivers progress faster (mtt s80 is already doing well imho on driver progression).

If you completely cut off market access to China, these companies will lose hundreds of millions, if not many billions of dollars every quarter. I morally do not like what Nvidia is doing either, but killing one of their biggest markets outright by governmental decree is a step too far in my opinion.

 

[atomicWAR]

If you completely cut off market access to China, these companies will lose hundreds of millions, if not many billions of dollars every quarter. I morally do not like what Nvidia is doing either but killing one of their biggest markets outright by governmental decree is a step too far in my opinion.

Fair point but sanctions/embargo's have hurt company sales since always. It may be their largest market but that alone doesn't exonerate companies like Nvidia.

At best we could allow non-ai capable cards/cpus into China to counter these losses even if they'd only somewhat help do so.

AI only recently really blew up (chat gpt anyone?)...So Nvidia and others can afford this haircut so to speak imho. If we were decades in to the recent AI boom....that may be another story...may. But as it stands now I mostly disagree with your conclusion even if I see and sympathize where you are coming from as I am not a fan of government over reach. But sometimes, issues like this need to hurt bottom lines to get a job done.

 

[helper800]

Fair point but sanctions/embargo's have hurt company sales since always. It may be their largest market but that alone doesn't exonerate companies like Nvidia.

At best we could allow non-ai capable cards/cpus into China to counter these losses even if they'd only somewhat help do so.

AI only recently really blew up (chat gpt anyone?)...So Nvidia and others can afford this haircut so to speak imho. If we were decades in to the recent AI boom....that may be another story...may. But as it stands now I mostly disagree with your conclusion even if I see and sympathize where you are coming from as I am not a fan of government over reach. But sometimes, issues like this need to hurt bottom lines to get a job done.

I respect your position, however, this would not be a haircut for Nvidia more like a double leg amputation, and sure Nvidia can survive that, but can AMD, and others?

 

[atomicWAR]

I respect your position, however, this would not be a haircut for Nvidia more like a double leg amputation, and sure Nvidia can survive that, but can AMD, and others?

That respect is mutual and geat question...I believe so but until it actually happens I think it is impossible to tell.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

I don't get this kind of talk from Raimondo. Nvidia is either following the rules or isn't. Nvidia has complied with every single export restriction that has come down in recent times so if she has a problem with the chips getting to China, then just change the restrictions. If Nvidia isn't following current laws/restrictions in some way, then fine and ligitate the hell out of them. But how is Nvidia gonna read the governments mind and embargo themselves without clear guidance from the top on what needs to be restricted? If Raimondo thinks currently unbanned chips are still too good for China, just increase the restrictions, simple as.

 

[helper800]

I don't get this kind of talk from Raimondo. Nvidia is either following the rules or isn't. Nvidia has complied with every single export restriction that has come down in recent times so if she has a problem with the chips getting to China, then just change the restrictions. If Nvidia isn't following current laws/restrictions in some way, then fine and ligitate the hell out of them. But how is Nvidia gonna read the governments mind and embargo themselves without clear guidance from the top on what needs to be restricted? If Raimondo thinks currently unbanned chips are still too good for China, just increase the restrictions, simple as.

That is a very black and white take, but the waters are muddied a bit because the sanctions were effective until Nvidia designs a chip that is just below the sanctions to keep selling to China. The government is trying to avoid playing sanctions whack-a-mole with Nvidia. Meanwhile, Nvidia should not have to pull out the crystal ball and divine what the government's intent is with the sanctions.

 

[JTWrenn]

I don't think the regulator understand the difference between the word complying and circumventing. Nvidia is making new products to follow your rules and you keep moving the goalpost. This is politics screwing up regulation and a regulator not knowing how to regulate all in one.

The dumbest thing is all this is going to do is cause China to make their own chips and get more home grown tech faster. It's a lose lose regulation that is made all the worse by the poor implementation. Just another Russia sanctions debacle all over again. It's like they don't finish their thoughts on an idea before immediately implementing it.

 

[mac_angel]

Ummmm, both Jensen Huang and Lisa Su are Chinese.
"I don't think this is going to end well"

 

[tstager]

Ummmm, both Jensen Huang and Lisa Su are Chinese.
"I don't think this is going to end well"

Technically, they are both Taiwanese. There is a large cultural difference.

 

[bit_user]

I'm a little sympathetic with tech companies, on this situation. The regulators should think hard and place limits that have enough margin that you can build something to them which won't undermine the sanctions. If products that slide under the limits are deemed harmful, that just says the limits weren't placed low enough.

Ultimately, what the industry needs is clarity (i.e. set limits as far in advance as possible, and then simply enforce them). If the regulators aren't giving them that much, then it's doubly bad to criticize them for just trying to conform to whatever limits are currently in place.

And let's not kid ourselves. Multinational corporations are not patriotic. They never really were, and that's not about to change. Attacking them for it just misses the point.

 

[bit_user]

I'd skip this back and forth game if I were the american pols and just ban all gpu/ai sales (last 3 gens as applicable) from Nvidia, AMD, Intel and Cereberus to China.

Too drastic, IMO.

What we're lacking is clarity on their actual goal. I had assumed they don't want China to have training capacity for LLMs. That's only very practical with the most powerful GPUs that have the most RAM and I/O bandwidth. There are ways you could cut down existing GPUs so that they're still usable for gaming but not AI training. I don't see why that can't be done, so long as the "disablement" is more than just a video BIOS chip that someone could easily swap out or reprogram.

Worst case, yeah maybe you do ban 4090's, 4080's, 3090's and 3080's. But, you don't need to ban all the lower-end cards, too.

Heck maybe it would even help their drivers progress faster (mtt s80 is already doing well imho on driver progression).

Not to get on a tangent, here, but you're undermining your own point with this comment.

That is a very black and white take, but the waters are muddied a bit because the sanctions were effective until Nvidia designs a chip that is just below the sanctions to keep selling to China.

That just says the limits were set incorrectly. The limits shouldn't be set just low enough to rule out a specific product, but rather they should be set low enough that a conforming product doesn't represent the kind of threat they're trying to control.

The dumbest thing is all this is going to do is cause China to make their own chips and get more home grown tech faster.

That was already happening.

 

[peachpuff]

Technically, they are both Taiwanese. There is a large cultural difference.

Xi Jinping: same thing!

 

[hotaru251]

ok this isnt political (but i can't make my point w/o involving a gov)

gov: "here are the guidelines of what can & can't be sold to China"
company: "ok" We can work within these rules.
[company does exactly so]
gov: "yo you can't do that!"
company: "but we followed your rules..."


if someone doesnt want a product sold at all they should just state as such as you can't blame a company for following rules to sell product. (thats business)

 

[thestryker]

And let's not kid ourselves. Multinational corporations are not patriotic. They never really were, and that's not about to change. Attacking them for it just misses the point.

So much this and it's up to the government to determine how much they want to do to keep companies in line. Andy Grove in 2010 had a lot to say regarding manufacturing I found it interesting at the time and it has held up (and some cnet coverage from back when they were actually tech journalists):

How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late: Andy Grove

Recently an acquaintance at the next table in a Palo Alto, California, restaurant introduced me to his companions: three young venture capitalists from China. They explained, with visible excitement, that they were touring promising companies in Silicon Valley. I’ve lived in the Valley a long...

web.archive.org

Why Andy Grove is right

Former Intel CEO Andy Grove compellingly argues that more manufacturing needs to be done in the U.S.

www.cnet.com

Intel's Andy Grove on manufacturing in America

The chipmaker's position as a U.S. high-tech company making big investments in domestic manufacturing is one that's increasingly rare. Andy Grove explains why.

www.cnet.com

 

[KyaraM]

If they want companies to follow "the spirit of the law", then maybe. Just maybe. They should setup these sanctions so that it's actually clear what they want. They restrict performance classes, but actually want to restrict capabilities. Then how about you actually restrict capabilities, ffs...

As other here already said, all they do is uselessly move the goalposts instead of settings things up the way they actually want them to be. That's not just confusing, but utterly pointless and, in all honesty, also not exactly fair to the companies and especially the people who have to do the work. What Nvidia is doing is also not 'skirting' anything. They got a framework to follow. They follow the framework. If the result is not your intention, build a better framework, but don't blame the people trying to follow your framework. End of the story.

 

[bit_user]

They restrict performance classes, but actually want to restrict capabilities. Then how about you actually restrict capabilities, ffs...

It sounds like that's the direction they're trying to go.

'This was traditionally how export controls worked, admitted Raimondo, but said she was seeking “a new way to have a continuous dialogue with industry where our Engineers can go toe-to-toe with their engineers, and we go to them and say our intent is to deny China technologies that can do XYZ.” In other words, sanctions may be readjusted somehow to target capabilities rather than levels of performance.'
​

We'll see how well that works out...