No GPUs for you: US blocks sales of AI chips to China and Russia

In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Friday, Nvidia reported that US government officials have ordered restrictions on sales of its top AI chips to China and Russia. The new restrictions (in the form of licensing requirements, subject to approval by the US government) include the powerful A100 Tensor Core GPU, the upcoming H100, and any chips of equivalent power or systems that incorporate them. The goal is to "address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a'military end use' or'military end user' in China and Russia," according to Nvidia, which notes that the firm already does not sell products to customers in Russia. Reuters reports that the Department of Commerce intends for the new policy to "keep advanced technologies out of the wrong hands." The US has also restricted sales of AMD's MI250 Accelerator AI chip to China.