US denies blocking chip sales to the Middle East

Reuters news agency recently quoted a US Commerce Department spokesman as saying that President Joe Biden's administration "is not blocking chip sales to the Middle East", after it was revealed that Washington had added export license requirements for artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

The comments came after artificial intelligence chipmakers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) received notice from US officials of new export license requirements to ship chips to several countries in the Middle East.

However, neither company said whether they had been denied licenses to ship chips to those countries.

The US often imposes export controls for national security reasons. (Photo: Reuters)

Specifically, California-based technology company Nvidia said its high-performance A100 and H100 chips, which help speed up artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT, have been placed on a “no export” list to several countries in the Middle East.

“The US government has notified us of additional licensing requirements for the A100 and H100 products for certain customers and regions, including some countries in the Middle East,” said a statement from Nvidia, one of the world’s leading technology companies with a value of about $1.2 trillion.

Reuters , citing a well-placed source, noted that AMD was also affected by the export extension. Last September, AMD said it had received new licensing requests that meant it had to halt exports of MI250 chips to China altogether.

“Over the long term, our results and competitive position could be harmed and we could be excluded from all or part of the Chinese market if there are further changes to the U.S. government’s export controls,” Nvidia said in a statement.

The US typically imposes export controls on national security grounds. It’s unclear what the licensing requirements for Middle Eastern countries will be or why the US is implementing them. But in this case, it appears to be due to some Middle Eastern countries’ ties to China, which is competing with Washington for technological supremacy.

Both Washington and Beijing have imposed export restrictions on key technology products to each other’s countries and allies. In July, China announced controls on exports of two rare metals needed to make semiconductors to Europe and the US.

(Source: Tin Tuc Newspaper)

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