Nvidia’s AI chips hit with new curbs for export to some Middle East countries as US tightens semiconductor controls
- The chip designer said in an August 28 filing that its A100 and H100 machine learning chips have new licensing requirements for some regions outside China
- Nvidia said the new rule ‘doesn’t affect a meaningful portion of our revenue’
The US expanded the restriction of exports of sophisticated Nvidia artificial-intelligence chips beyond China to other regions including some countries in the Middle East, the company said in a regulatory filing this week.
US officials usually impose export controls for national security reasons. A similar move announced last year signalled an escalation of the US crackdown on China’s technological capabilities, but it was not immediately clear what risks were posed by exports to the Middle East.
The company said the curbs, which affect its A100 and H100 chips designed to speed up machine-learning tasks, would not have an “immediate material impact” on its results.
In a separate statement, Nvidia said the new licensing requirement “doesn’t affect a meaningful portion of our revenue. We are working with the US government to address this matter.”
The US Commerce Department, which normally administers new licensing requirements on exports, did not immediately return a request for comment.
Last September Nvidia rival Advanced Micro Devices also said it had received new license requirements that would halt exports of its MI250 artificial-intelligence chips to China.
Nvidia, AMD and Intel have since then all disclosed plans to create less powerful AI chips that can be exported to the Chinese market.
Nvidia, which gave no reason for the new restrictions in the filing dated August 28, last year said US officials informed them the rule “will address the risk that products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China”.