Although the Biden administration has acknowledged that it cannot sell its most cutting-edge semiconductors to Chinese companies, it is in talks with Nvidia on the sale of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China.
In a Dec. 11 interview with Reuters, US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated that Nvidia “can, will, and should sell AI chips to China because most AI chips will be for commercial applications.”
“We are unable to permit them to export the most advanced AI chips with the highest processing power, as this would allow China to train their frontier models,” the spokesperson continued.
Speaking with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang a week ago, Ms. Raimondo claimed he was “crystal clear.” We wish to abide by the guidelines. We’ll cooperate if you tell us the rules.
During a meeting last week in California, Ms. Raimondo issued a warning to chip companies regarding AI chips. According to her, the Commerce Department would typically draw a “cutline,” and businesses such as Nvidia would develop new chips “just below” that line.
That isn’t helpful, according to Ms. Raimondo. “I’m going to take control of it the very next day if you redesign a chip around a specific cutline that allows them to do artificial intelligence.”
On December 11, Ms. Raimondo declared that the department was collaborating with Nvidia. They aspire to act morally. Naturally, their goal is to sell as many chips as they can.
Nvidia chose not to respond. Mr. Huang stated last week that the business was closely collaborating with the US government to make sure that newly developed chips for the Chinese market complied with export restrictions.
In a second statement, Raimondo stated that it was too soon to determine whether the working group on commercial matters that was formed in August with China was effective.
A joint venture established by MasterCard was awarded a license by China’s central bank in November, and Broadcom’s US$69 billion (S$92.8 billion) acquisition of cloud computing company VMware was authorized. “Baby steps in the right direction,” as she put it.
Ms. Raimondo expressed her disappointment that Chinese airlines were still not receiving Boeing aircraft deliveries. Over four years after they were suspended due to two fatal disasters, Boeing is still waiting to start delivering the 737 MAX to Chinese carriers. Boeing opted not to respond.
According to Ms. Raimondo, during discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California in November, US President Joe Biden brought up Boeing.
