U.S. Restricts Sales of Sophisticated Chips to China and Russia

The scope of the U.S. government’s actions appears to go beyond Nvidia and AMD. Other companies that make tool or design software have received similar letters in recent weeks informing them that the high-end technologies they export to China have been restricted, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked to remain anonymous in order to discuss private deliberations.

A spokesman for the Commerce Department said it was conducting a review of policies related to China and might adopt new measures to keep advanced technologies out of the wrong hands.

Without commenting on the chip restrictions specifically, the spokesman said possible future steps include “preventing China’s acquisition and use of U.S. technology in the context of its military-civil fusion program to fuel its military modernization efforts, conduct human rights abuses and enable other malign activities.”

In the last few years, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security has tightened restrictions on supplying certain U.S. technologies to China, arguing that the goods were being sold through civilian supply chains but ultimately went toward military uses, like weapons, aircraft and surveillance technology. Companies can request a license to sell restricted items to specific customers, but most of those applications are denied.

Nvidia’s and AMD’s statements indicated that they did not expect licenses to be granted in most cases. AMD said it expected the measures to “prevent” the sale of a product called the MI250 to China and Russia.

Nvidia said the measures affected an existing product, the A100, as well as a product that is expected to be available later this year, the H100. It added that the restrictions might hurt its ability to complete development of the H100 in a timely manner or support existing customers of the A100, and might require the company to transition certain operations out of China.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/technology/gpu-chips-china-russia.html