US extends export ban of Nvidia GPUs for AI to Middle East – update
The United States extends the export ban of Nvidia chips for AI to several countries in the Middle East. It is not known which countries are involved, but Nvidia would no longer be allowed to sell the A100 and H100 GPUs for AI there. The US denies that.
Nvidia says that an explanation to the American Stock Exchange Authority on its previously presented quarterly figures. The company says that in the past quarter the US government was informed that there will be additional restrictions on selling A100 and H100 products to ‘certain countries and other regions, including some countries in the Middle East’. Neither Nvidia nor the US government specify which countries are involved.
Nvidia announced last week that it had achieved hundreds of percent more turnover in the past quarter. This is mainly due to the explosive increase in GPUs for data centers on which companies train artificial intelligence models. These are mainly the A100 and H100 GPUs.
The US government has already imposed strict restrictions on Nvidia from selling those products in China and Russia. The export restrictions for Russia are related to the invasion of Ukraine, but for China the export ban is a way in which the US is trying to make China less dominant in the AI field. This ban has been in place since last year. The US says it is afraid that the products are being used ‘for military purposes’. Nvidia and the US government provide no further explanation for the more extensive export ban. The US may be afraid that the chips will end up in China via countries in the Middle East.
The US government denies that it has imposed export restrictions. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce says to Reuters that it ‘has not imposed a sales ban on chips to the Middle East’, but neither the ministry nor Nvidia say why Nvidia wrote that in its quarterly figures.
Update: the US government’s denial is included in the article.