Quick Summary:
US government from time to time releases list of semiconductor export bans to prevent countries like China , Russia from importing US semiconductors. On 29th of March , US released yet another list of semiconductor export bans that aims at closing the existing loopholes in the previous list of semiconductor export ban.
The list of semiconductor export ban announced by US on 29th of March this time has tried to target advanced computing, supercomputers, semiconductors end-uses and semiconductor manufacturing product. Let me tell you this updated list of semiconductor export ban has come into action since April 4th.
Understanding the new list of semiconductor export ban.
This latest list of semiconductor export ban has tried to refine the parameters of previous regulations , thus tightening the criteria of exports to the infamous “D:5 countries”, which include countries like China ,North Korea, Russia etc. From now on these D:5 countries will require a detailed explanation of all the technology products they wish to import from US. Like they would have to give a detailed description of ” Total Processing Performance (TPP) and Performance Density (PD), and after knowing these info , these will go a case by case review.
Must Read: Russia is facing Chip Crisis, 50% of chip produced found defective.
But this time after the enforcement of the new list of semiconductor export ban , a new provision has been introduced under name ” Advanced Computing Authorizes(ACA)” , which allows for certain exports and re-exports among few countries which include the infamous D:5 countries.
The usual suspects and their Next-Gen Successors
According to TrendForce’s analysis, the extension of export controls now includes not only the previously restricted AI chips from NVIDIA and AMD (like the NVIDIA A100/H100, AMD MI250/300 series, NVIDIA A800, H800, L40, L40S, and RTX4090), but also their next-generation successors like NVIDIA’s H200, B100, B200, GB200, and AMD’s MI350 series.
It should be kept in mind that it is the Nvidia H100 GPU’s which are powering most of the LLM’s which include ChatGPT and other AI’s.
How are Companies dealing with the new list of semiconductor export ban?
As soon as US released the newer list of semiconductor export ban , companies like Nvidia started preparing for the chipsets which meet the new TPP and PD standards. Nvidia tried to protect its export business by adjusting its H20/L20/L2 chipsets to meet with the new TPP and PD standards .This way they just found the new loopholes and made their business out of it.
The Verdict
As far as we are able to decode and see, despite the updated regulations emphasizing stricter reviews for products exceeding computing power limits, the actual additional impact on the industry from these updates will be insignificant. More or less the updated list of semiconductor export ban has tried to fill the existing loopholes in the rules by introducing new TPP and PD standards . Also this new list of semiconductor export ban will speed up the China’s progress in developing AI chips and advanced manufacturing processes ,instead of slowing down the China’s development in advanced technologies . This new updated list seems more as of a bark than bite atleast till now.
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