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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
When it comes to long-term prosperity in the high-tech world, it's all about setting standards. Intel once set the standard with x86, PCIe, and USB and now the vast majority of devices use these technologies in one way or another. Nvidia now enjoys its investments in the CUDA ecosystem and is setting the standard in AI compute in general. To a large degree, Nvidia's efforts made the U.S. industry the leader in AI. However, containing AI hardware in the U.S. will provoke rapid development of competing AI ecosystems that can eventually outperform the one developed in America.
"We are at an inflection point: the United States needs to decide if it is going to continue to lead the global development and deployment of AI or if we are going to retreat and retrench," a remark by Nvidia's chief executive Jensen Huang (republished by Ray Wang [x.com] reads) to the U.S. lawmakers reads. "America cannot lead by slowing down. If we step back, others will step in. And the global AI ecosystem will fragment — technologically, economically, and ideologically."
[...] The new U.S. export rules for compute GPUs — known as the AI Diffusion Rule [tomshardware.com] — come into effect on May 15. Under the Biden administration's AI Diffusion framework, unrestricted access to high-end AI chips like Nvidia's H100 is reserved for companies in the U.S. and a select group of 18 allied countries classified as 'Tier 1.' Companies in 'Tier 2' nations are subject to an annual limit of approximately 50,000 H100-class GPUs, unless they secure verified end user (VEU) approval. They can still import up to 1,700 units per year without a license, and these do not count toward the national quota. However, countries listed as 'Tier 3' — including China, Russia, and Macau — are essentially blocked from receiving such hardware due to arms embargo restrictions. The Trump administration is now reviewing this tier system to make it more straightforward and enforceable, and is rumored to make limitations for Tier 2 nations even stricter.
Not only will Nvidia cease to be able to sell its GPUs to China, which is one of its largest markets, but its Chinese customers will be forced to either use its GPUs in the cloud, or switch to processors developed in China, such as those designed by Huawei or one of the aforementioned companies. While this will slow down development of China's AI sector in the short term, it will give a strong boost for its AI hardware ecosystem in the mid and long-term future.
[...] The U.S. has already seen the consequences of ceding technological leadership, when Huawei gained a dominant foothold in global 5G deployments by offering cheaper and faster-to-deploy infrastructure. This serves as a cautionary example of how losing control over foundational standards can shift both market power and geopolitical influence. Nevertheless, whether the current administration has learnt from similar past mistakes remains to be seen.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by psa on Thursday May 08, @07:10PM (2 children)
Most of this is disingenuous and insubstantive. Nvidia clearly wants to sell into these large markets, and the only global standards it really cares about are the ones that lock people into buying their products. It's a really odd proposal that exploitive technology lock-in from Nvidia, Intel, etc. are beneficial, and I'm surprised to see people so quick to swallow it.
China will create its own AI chips because 1) it sees a strategic advantage in AI investment, and 2) we trained them how to do it--which is what we're doing every time we set up manufacturing over there. China's large and successful espionage program aside, all tech we export as manufacturing eventually gets copied and sold back to us under brands from the countries that we originally thought we were using for cheap labor.
Does cutting off their supply change this timeline? Absolutely. But it is inevitable. And frankly, most of the time that's okay. But if the tech is used to run murder drones, or hack other countries, or any of the other things China (and the US) wants to do with it, I understand the desire to classify it as munitions--and then it probably makes sense to stop training them on this tech and sending them samples to work with. The calculus there is complicated.
The "Standards" argument is particularly egregious, though. China will use AI for what they want to use it for, and they care not one whit for what "safety" protocols or "standards" requirements we want to implement in other countries. Given that they have little respect for Western copyright or other artificial government monopolies we want to enforce, their models are free to use whatever material they want, be trained to do whatever they want, give whatever type of answers they want. Why would they follow our standards? That would be really stupid. And I don't think they are stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 08, @08:49PM
When are we going to stop listening to anyone who has their lips wrapped around Sam Altman's... wallet
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 09, @02:33PM
> China will use AI for what they want to use it for, and they care not one whit for what "safety" protocols or "standards" requirements we want to implement in other countries
I agree with the sentiment but I think you miss the point. Europe (3rd biggest economy) and US (biggest economy) will buy according to the standards. Also not china Asian countries. If US doesn't own the standards they lose out on the export business. Standards drive US tech dominance. Notice US already screwed up, completely missed the small devices market and let ARM win (UK company, recently bought by Japan). Now ARM is moving into the large devices market (Apple).