The US is considering new restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence chips to China

US President Joe Biden's administration is considering new restrictions on the export of artificial intelligence chips to China.

Here's What We Know

The Commerce Department could take action as early as early July to stop Nvidia and other manufacturers from shipping chips to customers in China and other countries without first obtaining a license.

The effort will be part of the final rules announced in October 2022. At the time, US authorities banned exports of the most advanced artificial intelligence chips.

Nvidia responded to the move by releasing a stripped-down version of the A100 accelerator for the Chinese market called the A800. Its performance was below the thresholds set by the Ministry of Commerce. However, the new measures could prohibit even A800 chips from being sold without a licence.

The administration is also considering restricting the rental of cloud services to Chinese artificial intelligence companies. There are suspicions that some firms in the PRC have circumvented the ban on exports of advanced chips in this way.

Go Deeper:

• The US has extended restrictions on chip exports to China, causing shares of Chinese companies including SMIC, Alibaba and Tencent to plummet.
• NVIDIA developed a simplified version of its advanced A100 chip to avoid the restrictions and continue shipping to China.
• The Chinese are quietly selling sanctioned NVIDIA A100 chips for $20,000 instead of $10,000.

Source: The Wall Street Journal.