"US Likely to Soon Block Exports of 'Low-Performance AI Semiconductors' to China"

"Export Restriction Measures Update Expected as Early as This Week"
Nvidia's AI Semiconductor H800 for China Faces Impact 전망

The U.S. administration under Joe Biden is expected to announce measures as early as this week to block the export of low-performance AI semiconductors that domestic semiconductor companies have been indirectly selling to China.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

On the 15th (local time), major foreign media outlets, citing multiple sources, reported that the Biden administration will update the semiconductor export restrictions to China, which were announced last October, within this month. Semiconductors for consumer products such as laptops are expected to be excluded from this export restriction.

The timing of the update is expected as early as this week, but there is still a possibility of delay.

If this restriction is announced, NVIDIA is expected to be significantly impacted. NVIDIA is currently selling AI semiconductors H800 and A800 to China. After the Biden administration announced export restrictions to China last October, NVIDIA released the H800 and A800 products, which have performance reduced by about 10-30% compared to the cutting-edge graphics processing units (GPUs) H100 and A100.

Chinese tech companies, which have found it difficult to obtain AI semiconductors due to U.S. sanctions, have recently competed to secure NVIDIA’s H800 and A800. In particular, the H800 has higher specifications than the A800 and is used in the cloud computing divisions of Chinese tech companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent. As a result, Chinese companies have actively purchased these semiconductors even as prices soared to unprecedented levels.

Foreign media explained, "While a U.S. government official refused to specify exactly which semiconductors would be targeted, multiple sources revealed that NVIDIA’s H800 is a semiconductor that the Biden administration wants to block from export."

Earlier, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in June that the Biden administration is preparing to prevent the export of 'modified AI semiconductors' developed to exploit loopholes in the export restrictions to China. WSJ explained that this is to strengthen measures because the existing restrictions make it difficult to block the use of U.S. AI semiconductors within China.

However, since then, U.S. semiconductor companies including NVIDIA, Intel, and Qualcomm have expressed concerns about plans to add further export restrictions to China and have persuaded the administration to ease the severity of the measures and delay their timing. As a result, the announcement, initially expected in July or August, appears to have been postponed until October due to this process.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.