U.S. issues warning to NVIDIA

Dicehunter · 4 Dec 2023 at 13:15

As this could affect the entire PC enthusiast community...

U.S. issues warning to NVIDIA, urging to stop redesigning chips for China - VideoCardz.com

NVIDIA gets a warning from U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Jensen Huang NVIDIA is consistently exploring ways to navigate the recent restrictions imposed on the export regulations of advanced chips by the US government. The company has recurrently introduced new hardware designed to...

videocardz.com

This coincides with an article I read the other day were Jensen says he has worries all the time, Paraphrasing, That the company will go bankrupt overnight... trying to skirt the line around the US government is a good way to have your assets seized in the name of national security which will happen if he's not careful if the US government thinks his company poses a real danger.

Chuk_Chuk · 4 Dec 2023 at 13:43

Don’t worry Jensen AMD will fill the gap in China

jklc · 4 Dec 2023 at 14:01

Incoming 4090D for the rest of the world?

Freddie1980 · 4 Dec 2023 at 15:11

If sanctions on Russian have shown us anything there are ways around restrictions like selling through 3rd parties.

ToOo · 4 Dec 2023 at 15:22

If sanctions on Russia have shown us anything it's that sanctions are extremely effective.
The EU was one of Russias most important trading partners, not so much anymore.
Russia’s share in extra-EU imports fell from 9.6% in February 2022 to 1.7% in June 2023.
The share of extra-EU exports fell from 3.8 % to 1.4% in the same period.

Dicehunter · 4 Dec 2023 at 15:24

jklc said:
Incoming 4090D for the rest of the world?

Jensen wants to give everyone the D !

Freddie1980 · 4 Dec 2023 at 17:00

ToOo said:
If sanctions on Russia have shown us anything it's that sanctions are extremely effective.
The EU was one of Russias most important trading partners, not so much anymore.
Russia’s share in extra-EU imports fell from 9.6% in February 2022 to 1.7% in June 2023.
The share of extra-EU exports fell from 3.8 % to 1.4% in the same period.

The numbers though don't tell the story. The large chuck of trade between the EU and Russia was oil and gas from the Urals and Russia would be machinery and equipment that Russia couldn't make itself or buy from China. Europe is now buying a lot of it's gas in the form of LNG from places like Oman and oil from the middle east or North America. On the flip side Russia can't buy directly from the EU but it can buy from countries like Kyrgyzstan which by some 'coincidence' has tripled it's imports from Germany since 2022.

I don't want to off topic but the examples are there and if someone wants to buy Nvidia's products to forward them onto China I don't see how anyone can stop that. China after all will be throwing money at anyone who is willing to break the embargo and lets not forget the manufacturing for these products is done right of it's coast.

Aegis · 4 Dec 2023 at 18:44

Personally, I think it's pretty outrageous how the US government is behaving here - they've put legal measures in place to prevent specific classes of product from being exported to China (fine) - but now Jensen is creating products that fall outside of those limitations, they're changing the law because they don't want these new products going to China either..?

They're too cowardly to do an outright ban of GPUs but will happily keep rewriting the laws to essentially achieve that. Not cool.

(BTW, no loyalty to Nvidia or any other company here - just think the way the US is going about this is really scummy)

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 4 Dec 2023 at 20:48

Freddie1980 said:
The numbers though don't tell the story. The large chuck of trade between the EU and Russia was oil and gas from the Urals and Russia would be machinery and equipment that Russia couldn't make itself or buy from China. Europe is now buying a lot of it's gas in the form of LNG from places like Oman and oil from the middle east or North America. On the flip side Russia can't buy directly from the EU but it can buy from countries like Kyrgyzstan which by some 'coincidence' has tripled it's imports from Germany since 2022.

I don't want to off topic but the examples are there and if someone wants to buy Nvidia's products to forward them onto China I don't see how anyone can stop that. China after all will be throwing money at anyone who is willing to break the embargo and lets not forget the manufacturing for these products is done right of it's coast.

Also a lot of Russian energy supplies and raw materials are being washed through third parties. An example being LNG itself.

Nasher · 4 Dec 2023 at 20:52

A big thing is China and Russia using western tech in weapons systems, especially processors. If they stop that it stops them making effect guidance systems etc.

They don't have their own equivalents. China relies on copying and stealing tech from the US and Europe.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 4 Dec 2023 at 20:58

Nasher said:
A big thing is China and Russia using western tech in weapons systems, especially processors. If they stop that it stops them making effect guidance systems etc.

Russia is using commodity parts in many of its weapons. That includes some easily available commodity ARM based SBC from various companies.

China increasingly does not need western made tech in its weapons. Most embedded electronics used in weapons are made on older nodes, as the chips have to be radiation hardened and extensively validated. For example some of the older batches of Russian cruise missiles were found to use 90nm class chips from Western companies. China can make chips upto 7nm using older ASML equipment. But it produces its own 28nm lithography machines now which is more than sufficient for a lot of things.

Their biggest limitation in weapons are engines,especially WRT to making sufficiently durable materials.

Nasher · 4 Dec 2023 at 21:03

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
Russia is using commodity parts in many of its weapons. That includes some easily available commodity ARM based SBC from various companies.

China increasingly does not need western tech in its weapons. Most embedded electronics used in weapons are made on older nodes, as the chips have to be radiation hardened and extensively validated. For example some of the older batches of Russian cruise missiles were found to use 90nm class chips from Western companies. China can make chips upto 7nm using older ASML equipment. But it produces its own 28nm lithography now which is more than sufficient for a lot of things.

Their biggest limitation in weapons are engines,especially WRT to making sufficiently durable materials.

But their stuff is still a bit janky and knock-off based. it doesn't have the accuracy or the edge which western ones have.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 4 Dec 2023 at 21:13

Nasher said:
But their stuff is still a bit janky and knock-off based. it doesn't have the accuracy or the edge which western ones have.

Which mean nothing if they can build 10x more stuff. Their industry is subservient to the state not shareholders. This is why we have crap like this happening:

The British Army Might Kill the Armored Vehicle That Made Its Soldiers Sick

Disaster.

www.popularmechanics.com

It was based off an existing vehicle too. So charge the taxpayer the max amount whilst cost cutting in basic design and testing. Its part of the reason why we can't build enough basic ammo because it's not high margin for companies to care.

The Germans had the best weapons in WW2. What beat them is the sheer quantity the Allies could bring to the fight and the fact we could build more basic ammo.

Also the attitude China can't build precision items is the same attitude people thought about the Japanese or South Koreans 50 to 60 years ago. Considering both Nvidia and AMD CEOs families originate from that part of the world, nobody should underestimate them. They will try their best to get there.

Especially considering we are simply producing not enough STEM graduates and have to increasing get people from abroad to fill positions.

There is way to much hubris and short term thinking we have in the west, based around short term profits and excessive finanialisation of everything. We really need to be investing in things not necessarily for financial return.

Emlyn_Dewar · 5 Dec 2023 at 04:44

US world police at it again. They must be doing some pretty scary things with AI to be wanting to limit other countries so much...
Why don't they just come out and say Nvidia are not allowed to deal with China, and that Nvidia are to be controlled by the US Govt going forward? Seems like what they want.

Dicehunter · 5 Dec 2023 at 05:25

Emlyn_Dewar said:
US world police at it again. They must be doing some pretty scary things with AI to be wanting to limit other countries so much...
Why don't they just come out and say Nvidia are not allowed to deal with China, and that Nvidia are to be controlled by the US Govt going forward? Seems like what they want.

I'm not exactly a fan of the way the US government behaves but China is straight up 1984 territory, You do not want to be enabling that type of country especially with how China wants to take over neighboring countries and territories.

SpellowHouse · 5 Dec 2023 at 06:09

Dicehunter said:
I'm not exactly a fan of the way the US government behaves but China is straight up 1984 territory, You do not want to be enabling that type of country especially with how China wants to take over neighboring countries and territories.

The West has built China. We allowed our companies to move production to China. What did we expect?

Dicehunter · 5 Dec 2023 at 06:17

SpellowHouse said:
The West has built China. We allowed our companies to move production to China. What did we expect?

All down to the greed of companies, If governments put their foot down decades ago it would be an entirely different scene now.

Jimmy Weirdarms · 5 Dec 2023 at 09:06

Freddie1980 said:
if someone wants to buy Nvidia's products to forward them onto China I don't see how anyone can stop that.

If the US catches the third party doing this, they will be **** upon, hard, for sanctions-busting, if they are within legal reach. Even if they can't be touched for whatever reason nvidia will be prevented from doing further business with that entity because it will become sanctioned itself, and nobody that wants to trade in or with the US or any US companies will touch them again.

If nvidia are thought to be deliberately conspiring with such an operation, they will also be made to suffer.

Nasher · 5 Dec 2023 at 09:33

Emlyn_Dewar said:
US world police at it again. They must be doing some pretty scary things with AI to be wanting to limit other countries so much...
Why don't they just come out and say Nvidia are not allowed to deal with China, and that Nvidia are to be controlled by the US Govt going forward? Seems like what they want.

I'd much rather live in a US controlled world than a Chinese or Russian one. The US respects personal freedoms, China and Russia sees their population as slaves to the lifelong president.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 5 Dec 2023 at 09:41

SpellowHouse said:
The West has built China. We allowed our companies to move production to China. What did we expect?

Dicehunter said:
All down to the greed of companies, If governments put their foot down decades ago it would be an entirely different scene now.

Their government allowed the companies to move there though? Have you forgotten how much lobbyists have influence over politicians? Who do you think pays these lobbyists?

Look at how much wealth during the Pandemic was pushed upwards due to fraud?

Also, how governments in Europe have spent nearly a trillion euro padding the energy industries profits worldwide since last year? Or Subprime which they allowed to happen, and their buddies did well and we all got screwed?

Yet, so many people in Europe and indeed the US live in absolute poverty. But do any of these people really care? No they only care for their own pocket.