Upcoming US rules on AI chip exports

The U.S. will take steps to prevent
American chipmakers from selling products to China that
circumvent government restrictions, a U.S. official said, as
part of the Biden administration’s upcoming actions to
effectively block more AI chip exports.
The new rules, details of which Reuters is reporting for the
first time, will be added to sweeping U.S. restrictions on
shipments of advanced chips and chipmaking equipment to China
unveiled last October. The updates are expected this week, other
people familiar with the matter said, though such timetables
often slip.
The latest crackdown on tech exports to China coincides with
U.S. efforts to thaw difficult relations between the world’s two
largest economies. Several senior members of the Biden
administration have met their Chinese counterparts in recent
months, and the latest round of rules risks complicating the
diplomatic effort.
Chips meant for consumer products like laptops will be
exempt from the new curbs, the official said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Commerce,
which oversees export controls, declined to comment.
Last year government restrictions kept Nvidia, the
world’s most valuable chipmaker, from shipping two of its most
advanced AI chips to Chinese customers, chips that have become
the industry standard for developing chatbots and other AI
systems.
But Nvidia soon released new variants for the Chinese
market that were less sophisticated and got around the U.S.
export controls. One, named the H800, has as much computing
power at some settings used in AI work, as the company’s more
powerful but blocked H100 chip. Still, some key performance
aspects are limited, according to a specification sheet seen by
Reuters.
The U.S. now plans to introduce new guidelines for AI
chips that will restrict certain advanced datacenter AI chips
not currently captured, the official said.
While the U.S. official declined to identify which
additional chips will be effectively banned, Nvidia’s H800 is a
semiconductor several sources have said the administration has
wanted to block.