Reuters quoted Nvidia's latest regulatory filing reporting that the US is extending AI chip curbs beyond China to other regions, including some Middle Eastern countries.
The Guardian pointed out that the Biden administration decided to require an export license on Nvidia's A100 and H100 GPU products and servers sold to the Middle East and other countries to prevent the GPUs from being resold to China.
A100 and H100 are already banned from being exported to China and Russia, but they are still spotted and available in black markets in China, which suggests that they have been resold by vendors who acquired them in other countries and resold them to China. About 13.9% of Nvidia's sales came from all other countries (excluding the US, China, and Taiwan) combined, and Nvidia does not provide a revenue breakout from the Middle East.
Nvidia said in a statement that its A100 and H100 chips, designed to speed up machine-learning tasks, would not have an "immediate material impact" on its results.
But it also cautioned that although it has provided alternative products in China not subject to the license requirements, such as their A800 or H800 offerings, there are risks to be aware of. "Given the strength of demand for our products worldwide, we do not anticipate that additional export restrictions, if adopted, would have an immediate material impact on our financial results."
"While we work to enhance the resiliency and redundancy of our supply chain, which is currently concentrated in the Asia-Pacific, including China, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan, new export controls or changes to existing export controls could negatively impact our business," according to the statement.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters said AMD also received an informed letter with similar restrictions, adding that the move has no material impact on its revenue.
