US Gives Go-Ahead for Nvidia’s H200 Chip Sales to China
Udumbara
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The United States has formally green-lit Nvidia’s H200 chip sales to China, despite concerns the communist country could use the technology to supercharge its military.
The move is expected to kickstart the company’s sales of its second-most-powerful artificial intelligence chips. The sales are being permitted subject to the condition that China cannot receive more than half the total quantity of chips sold to U.S. consumers. In addition, the chips must first be reviewed by a third-party lab to confirm their technical artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities before being exported.
Opponents claimed the chips would boost China and take away from the U.S. lead in AI. These concerns had prompted former President Joe Biden’s administration to restrict advanced AI chip sales to China.
But Trump previously said in his Truth Social post the sales of the H200 chips must go to “approved customers in China.”
“This policy will support American Jobs, strengthen U.S. Manufacturing, and benefit American Taxpayers,” Trump posted. “The Biden Administration forced our Great Companies to spend BILLIONS OF DOLLARS building ‘degraded’ products that nobody wanted, a terrible idea that slowed Innovation, and hurt the American Worker. That Era is OVER!”
The U.S. president added that AMD and Intel would get approval to sell similar chips to China, adding that this policy will protect the country, create jobs, and keep America ahead in AI. He also said Chinese Communist Party head Xi Jinping responded positively upon hearing the approval of the export of the H200 chips.
To move forward with the chip sales, Nvidia will be required to ensure there are enough of them in the United States first. Chinese customers will have to show “sufficient security procedures” and cannot use the chips for military purposes.
David Sacks, chair of the president’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, also known as the White House AI and crypto czar, contended that shipping advanced chips to China will discourage competitors, such as the heavily sanctioned Chinese company, Huawei. The policy will keep the U.S. ahead in the AI race, Sacks said, reaffirming Trump’s position.
Nvidia says its H200 chips supercharge “generative AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads with game-changing performance and memory capabilities,” allowing energy efficiency to reach new levels.
Shortly after Trump announced the chip sales on Truth Social last month, Chris McGuire, senior fellow for China and emerging technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations, published an analysis showing that H200s could as much as triple the trajectory of China’s AI computing power.
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