Nvidia Snaps Back at Biden's 'Innovation-Killing' AI Chip Export Restrictions (theregister.com) 59
Nvidia has hit back at the outgoing Biden administration's AI chip tech export restrictions designed to tighten America's stranglehold on supply chains and maintain market dominance. From a report: The White House today unveiled what it calls the Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion from the Biden-Harris government, placing limits on the number of AI-focused chips that can be exported to most countries, but allowing exemptions for key allies and partners.
The intent is to work with AI companies and foreign governments to initiate critical security and trust standards as they build out their AI infrastructure, but the regulation also makes it clear that the focus of this policy is "to enhance US national security and economic strength," and "it is essential that ... the world's AI runs on American rails." Measures are intended to restrict the transfer to non-trusted countries of the weights for advanced "closed-weight" AI models, and set out security standards to protect the weights of such models. However GPU supremo Nvidia claims the proposed rules are so harmful that it has published a document strongly criticizing the decision.
The intent is to work with AI companies and foreign governments to initiate critical security and trust standards as they build out their AI infrastructure, but the regulation also makes it clear that the focus of this policy is "to enhance US national security and economic strength," and "it is essential that ... the world's AI runs on American rails." Measures are intended to restrict the transfer to non-trusted countries of the weights for advanced "closed-weight" AI models, and set out security standards to protect the weights of such models. However GPU supremo Nvidia claims the proposed rules are so harmful that it has published a document strongly criticizing the decision.
at least we can sleep safely (Score:5, Funny)
It's a good thing money cannot influence our government
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I think "Stopping the commies" is one area where the national security apparatus holds more sway than the corpos at large.
Re:at least we can sleep safely (Score:4)
I think "Stopping the commies" is one area where the national security apparatus holds more sway than the corpos at large.
Too bad that sentiment is about to be replaced with "We love autocrats!" by the Broligarchs in charge.
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We've always loved autocrats.
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We've always loved autocrats.
Perhaps because they're (often) easily manipulated, usually with flattery and money -- oh, wait ...
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Aristocrats love flattery.
"Blackadder: Good morning, sir. May I say how immensely rich you're looking. Now, was there anything you wanted, sir? Anything at all."
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I think "Stopping the commies" is one area where the national security apparatus holds more sway than the corpos at large.
Typically, yes, but Trump has already demonstrated that he can be bought, and has set up nice ways for people to funnel large amounts of money to him. His bribery vehicles are ideal because they work by enabling his "clients" to boost the value of assets he already owns, so assuming he doesn't cash out right away the clients have the ability to take back their bribes if he doesn't stay bought. Not only that, so far it looks like bribes benefit from enormous leverage: The $18M for flipping on the TikTok ban
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The dems can be and are bought, too. But the anti-communism super-structure of the united states has so deeply embedded itself in every dimension of the state, homeland security, and defense departments' architecture, laws, and staffing that it would take a catastrophic event to shift it. And a few specific industries saying "We can make a bit more money dealing in China" won't cut it anymore.
Realistic assessments of so-called "real" economy(not GDP, which can be fudged), like steel production, food produ
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The dems can be and are bought, too. But the anti-communism super-structure of the united states has so deeply embedded itself in every dimension of the state, homeland security, and defense departments' architecture, laws, and staffing that it would take a catastrophic event to shift it. And a few specific industries saying "We can make a bit more money dealing in China" won't cut it anymore.
Of course not. But an industry telling Trump that they'll give him a billion dollars so that they can operate in China will.
This is a different world than the old one where politicians got campaign donations, or promises of a few hundred thousand dollars for speaking engagements or a consulting job in the distant future, with no way for the politician to hold their feet to the fire if they renege. Trump has arrange things so that they can pay him, personally, cash on the barrel head in unlimited amounts
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If this were true we wouldn't have Chinese operatives in essentially everything, including the CIA [justice.gov]. How many politicians have we seen with Chinese spies on staff? Feinstein, Swalwell, etc. They're in the state governments as well e.g. Linda Sun. Every big league university has Chinese money, Chinese staff or both.
The "national security apparatus" isn't doing shit about China. They're picking off a few a of the most eggregious cases, and for everyone one they take out a hundred more are doing their th
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I think "Stopping the commies" is one area where the national security apparatus holds more sway than the corpos at large.
Incidentally, workers in the US were doing very well around the time politicians and rich people were shitting their pants because a significant number of people were considering adopting communism. I mean I'm glad we didn't, but having a stockpile of sharpened pitchforks never hurt anyone.
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They aren't even commies...
The US is about to get plundered. Watch as the billionaires extract as much wealth as they can for the next four years, and try to destroy everything that comes between them and profit.
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They're not necessarily wrong in this case. Only 18 countries are not restricted, the rest of the planet gets limited. Even Israel, home to a bunch of Intel's R&D facilities and some of their biggest fabs, is placed under the restriction... against chips that *they* design and manufacture.
It may be meaningless anyway. The rules don't take effect for 120 days, well into the next administration, which may just cancel the whole thing.
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Are we thinking that the restriction includes Intel CPUs?
It is true that one of their 5 advanced process fabs is located there.
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I can't list specific chips, but on Intel's website, two of their R&D locations specifically call out AI:
Intel Haifa: Hardware and software development center for processors and AI.
Intel Petah Tikvah: Communication and AI solutions development center.
They had a massive expansion in the works at Intel Kiryat Gat (AKA Fab 28), but it seems like that may have been put on hold.
Anyway, my point is just to illustrate how extensive the restrictions are when even a country that is designing and producing cuttin
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Intel is not a player in the AI market, yet.
Some Intel CPUs do have NPUs, but these aren't particularly advanced devices by any means, and I'm unsure if they qualify for restrictions.
If they do, then that would very much support your point that these are silly. If they do not, then it doesn't.
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It's similarly a good thing that flattery of the guy in charge won't affect national policy too.
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Yet. Donald Trump's inauguration happens next week.
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Well, for at least one more week.
Creating NVIDIA competitor (Score:2)
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EU and NATO are too intertwined now for EU to join BRICS.
The old UK/DE families have a blood libel against the Russian Monarchs, for whom they have substituted the current Russian government, whomever that might be at the moment. Their unholy alliance of monarchs and Socialists firmly believes that "Russia has our oil."
You'll see Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, maybe Estonia, exit the EU and participate in the BRICS currency, probably offering to maintain neutrality.
Trump sounds like he'll sanction them from U
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Re: Creating NVIDIA competitor (Score:2)
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make it attractive for the EU to join the BRICS
lol. You're not a serious person.
If the EU were to splinter, certainly a lot of the eastern half of it would join BRICS, but the EU itself joining BRICS? Give me a fucking break.
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You're definitely right that the former satellites that hate Russia want nothing to do with it, however Hungary, Serbia, Armenia have no such hatred for their former overlords.
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Hungary, really? They have a giant statue of Ronald ReaganM [wikipedia.org] in the courtyard of the Parliament building in Budapest. When I was there a few years ago, the hatred for Russia was palpable.
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Meanwhile, here in the world of current events, Eastern Opening Policy happened, and Hungary refused to impose sanctions against Russia, to the great chagrin of both the EU, and NATO.
Then, Hungary began being Russia's sole European backer in PACE.
Then, after Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned and the EU and Russia expelled each other's diplomats, Hungarian media found out that Orbán's government and Putin negotiated a single toke
Restrictions within the EU? (Score:2)
With even various EU countries now being put on the blacklist
How does that work? The EU is a common market so if they are selling the chips in one country anyone can buy them there and just use them in another EU country.
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There's no question this is fear motivated. The acronym is literally FRAID (Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion).
Little to late to even matter? (Score:2)
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The Ascend 910C is rumored to be "as good as an H100", but the domestically (SMIC) produced 910B is so unappealing that even the neutered NV H20s are selling tens of billions of dollars a year worth of parts in China.
This is probably because SMIC's N+2 DUV only has about 20% yield, making anything produced on it insanely priced.
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There are no domestic chips coming out of China that can come anywhere close to the training duties of the NV workhorses. At all. The Ascend 910C is rumored to be "as good as an H100", but the domestically (SMIC) produced 910B is so unappealing that even the neutered NV H20s are selling tens of billions of dollars a year worth of parts in China. This is probably because SMIC's N+2 DUV only has about 20% yield, making anything produced on it insanely priced.
Famous last words. China has shown time and time again that with lots of people and many of them very smart and driven, it can catch-up and compete (eg. EVs, smart phones, etc). In a few years it wont matter if the AI chip can surpass Nvidia et al, just like with desktop/laptop/server CPUs, eventually the speed will be more than adequate to do most AI tasks which is all that is needed.
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Nvidia is safe while it's leading the market because others can't copy them quickly - so they don't care as long as they can innovate ahead of the pack. When they slow on innovation then the rest will catch up. It's not like China can't get the hardware and software and reverse engineer it; they ARE doing so. Nvidia's business is in cutting edge chips - they don't care about anything being done with those chips. That isn't their business.
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Never once did I say that China can't catch up, merely that they have not caught up, and are therefor still negatively impacted by the export controls.
Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
I'm old enough to remember when they banned human cloning. There were warnings that China would clone SuperSolider armies so if we didn't do it too we'd be conquered militarily.
We still said no.
People are making the same arguments today. Either we destroy all jobs with AI or China will do it and conquer the world.
It ain't necessarily so.
AI take over (Score:2)
Are you benefiting? I don't trust the information in the AI-produced videos now dominating my youtube feed. Product reviews are less trust worthy. Social media posts from AI are agenda-pushing and insincere, and swamping out the users. It takes prodigious energy to run this crapification of the internet.
Re:AI take over (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you benefiting? I don't trust the information in the AI-produced videos now dominating my youtube feed. Product reviews are less trust worthy. Social media posts from AI are agenda-pushing and insincere, and swamping out the users. It takes prodigious energy to run this crapification of the internet.
It gives the tech bros and their adjacent owner class brethren more control over the narrative. That is the only benefit to these things. And as for the energy usage required to keep it all running? I'm certain there's another segment of the owner class absolutely thrilled that energy usage is and will continue to skyrocket under this flood of information sewage we're creating. It's a net win for the upper echelon of society, and as we all know, all of society exists only to continue to prop them up.
Attempting to prevent... (Score:2)
...China from acquiring tech is futile and silly.
They will get it on the black market. See the drug war for a good example.
Even worse, they are smart and capable and may someday develop tech that we need
AI on Chinese, Iranian, and Russian drones! (Score:2, Insightful)
I can't wait to send them the hardware.
One NVIDIA founder has given away the vast majority of his fortune. We don't hear about him.
The other NVIDIA founder is making billions, ruining the environment for largely fantasy gains, and trying to arm our enemies. We ALL Know who he is.
Exported from where, exactly? (Score:2)
If anything this hurts Intel.
AMD is also made in Asia.
Questionable logic. (Score:3)
"If I didn't sell it to them they'd just get it from somebody else" has always had dubious footing. I don't know it's any more valid here.
Apropos of nothing.... (Score:2)
We never should have let them strip second amendment protection from encryption. You may remember, higher end crypto used to be subject to export restrictions because it was labeled a weapon or something similar. If you wanted to do anything with encryption beyond toys in Java 7 for example, you had to go get an entirely separate library from oracle, and agree that you weren't exporting it.
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There are court rulings that have declared that human readable source code (including for performing encryption) is protected speech under the first amendment.
Noting that ... (Score:2)
"Innovation-Killing" is usually corp-speak for "profit-killing" - regardless of any actually innovation.
of course Nvidia doesn't like it (Score:2)
Misguided (Score:2)
This initiative fails on two accounts. First, restricting the sales of GPUs doesn't directly affect the transfer of "weights" to undesired recipients. As China has been doing all along, all one has to do is to rent cloud resources directly or set up intermediaries to set up systems in the US. Second, if the desire is to "enhance US ... economic strength", then this initiative does the exact oppositie.
nVidia: Boohoo, we can't sell to Hitler : ( (Score:2)