Nvidia Faces More Restrictions on AI Chip Sales, This Time in the Middle East
Nvidia says the US government is not only restricting the company’s AI chip sales to China, but also to certain countries in the Middle East.
The restrictions target Nvidia’s H100 and A100 GPUs, which are facing massive demand for their ability to develop generative AI programs, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The company mentioned the new restriction in an SEC filing, which Reuters spotted.
“The USG [US government] informed us of an additional licensing requirement for a subset of A100 and H100 products destined to certain customers and other regions, including some countries in the Middle East,” the company said in the filing.
Nvidia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, so it’s unclear which countries are affected. But the news arrives as the Biden administration has been concerned about the Chinese government using Nvidia’s chips to fuel the country's AI ambitions. A year ago, the White House began imposing export restrictions to prevent the chips from falling into the hands of Chinese companies and the Chinese military.
One US trade lawyer told The Telegraph the new restrictions are likely designed to prevent a Chinese office based in the Middle East from obtaining Nvidia chips, and then transferring the technology to China.
In the meantime, the Biden administration has reportedly been mulling harsher restrictions to close gaps in the US’s existing export controls, which currently require Nvidia to apply for a license to sell certain AI chips to Chinese entities. This has forced the company to sell less powerful enterprise GPUs in China, which local companies have still been buying up.
The demand from China has helped Nvidia's earnings soar on the AI chip sales. Nevertheless, the possibility of more
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