In response to new export restrictions placed on AI GPUs, Nvidia posted a scathing blog criticizing the outgoing Biden-Harris administration. The administration’s Interim Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion largely targets China with restrictions on AI GPUs, according to Newsweek.
Nvidia disagrees. “While cloaked in the guise of an ‘anti-China’ measure, these rules would do nothing to enhance U.S. security. The new rules would control technology worldwide, including technology that is already widely available in mainstream gaming PCs and consumer hardware. Rather than mitigate any threat, the new Biden rules would only weaken America’s global competitiveness, undermining the innovation that has kept the U.S. ahead,” wrote Nvidia’s vice president of government of affairs Ned Finkle.
Nvidia’s comment on hardware that is available in mainstream gaming PCs is interesting. Nvidia makes some of the best graphics cards you can buy, but the new restrictions are largely focused on AI. In particular, large-scale AI chip orders. According to the rule, restrictions kick in on chip orders with “collective computation power up to roughly 1,700 advanced GPUs,” noting that the “overwhelming majority” of orders are under that mark and, therefore, not subject to restrictions.
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Focus Taiwan reports that 18 of the U.S.’ key allies aren’t subject to any restrictions, either. These “tier-one” countries include Taiwan, Germany, Canada, Japan, Norway, and the United Kingdom, among others. “Tier-three” countries see the heaviest restrictions, including countries like China, North Korea, Iran, and Russia.
As an interim rule, the restrictions aren’t enforceable for 120 days, and they won’t fully go into effect for a year. Nvidia says that it looks “forward to a return to policies that strengthen American leadership” with the upcoming Trump administration. “As the first Trump Administration demonstrated, America wins through innovation, competition, and by sharing our technologies with the world — not by retreating behind a wall of government overreach,” the blog post reads.
In addition to AI chip restrictions, the new rule also places restrictions on closed-weight models. These are AI models that have some proprietary weights and include models like GPT-4 that’s behind the wildly popular ChatGPT. The Biden administration says that the new rules won’t place any restrictions on open-weight models.
With mere days left in the Biden-Harris administration and a generous 120-day window for public comment on the new rules, it’s hard to imagine that these AI restrictions will remain in place. Nvidia certainly doesn’t want them to, saying that “global progress is now in jeopardy” while praising the first Trump administration for laying “the foundation for America’s current strength and success in AI.”
