Washington demands accountability from Nvidia. Despite strict export restrictions imposed over the past two yearsChinese companies and research centers are always able to get their hands on graphics cards dedicated to generative AI from the Santa Clara Group.
Brokers
According to the information siteRecently, the US Department of Commerce asked Nvidia to investigate to find flaws in its distribution system. This partly depends on the brokers. This is for example the case of Super Micro or Dell, which sell servers equipped with their own GPUs.
Nvidia has contacted its major distributors in Southeast Asia, so they can conduct checks with their customers. And ensure that they do not simply play the role of intermediaries to allow Chinese actors to escape US sanctions. However, five sources cited by The Information claim that their ruse went undetected during recent inspections by Super Micro.
To circumvent export restrictions, these intermediaries copied the serial numbers of servers containing Nvidia chips, US media explain. In some cases, they even changed the serial numbers in the servers’ operating system.
Nvidia is also looking for solutions
The Commerce Department’s judicial orders underscore how difficult it is to enforce sanctions targeting China. Last year, the United States tried to fill the loopholes, particularly by targeting countries allied with Beijing, which are more likely to act as intermediaries. This fall, they imposed new restrictions.
If NVIDIA claims that it respects US legislation, its managers also seek to circumvent it by launching new, less powerful graphics processing units, respecting the standards set by Washington, but still capable of training and running artificial intelligence models.
China still represents more than 10% of its business volume. The group is particularly concerned about the long-term consequences, fearing a strong acceleration in Chinese efforts to develop competing chips. He fears it The latest developments from Huawei In the field that seems to be confirmed.
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