Yeah especially because only 1 country in the world would even considers this smuggling. As soon as the GPUs leave the US it's legal anywhere.
28
Tomas28914 days ago
-13
The CCP just banned Nvidia AI GPUs. it’s not even legal in China
-13
peterausdemarsch4 days ago
+15
That's inaccurate. They're still allowing it with permission. They're encouraging using Huawei GPUs for AI training wich is smart. Also consumer GPUs from Nvidia are 100% allowed.
15
Tomas28914 days ago
-2
Nah they are still [banned](https://www.ft.com/content/12adf92d-3e34-428a-8d61-c9169511915c?syn-25a6b1a6=1).
Yeah but he should know that global demand does include Chinese purchases that are routed to other countries
2
DigitaIBlack3 days ago
+1
Gamers Nexus put out a fantastic deep dive into the GPU grey market.
The landscape has definitely changed since its release but it's still highly informative.
1
oppai-police4 days ago
+9
It's preposterous to think you can safeguard technology from leaking 100%, sooner or later it will get out. I mean come on if China managed to successfully obtain, reverse engineer, and incorporate their own design and set manufacturing line from stolen F-22 fighter jets data, what makes you think you can stop them from obtaining the latest chips data. It's not a matter of will they, it's a matter of when. Best you can do is keep investing in R&D to stay ahead. You spend all those money setting up firewalls that only sooner or later, will be breached.
9
SomeFatChild4 days ago
+8
It's rarely the firewalls getting breached, usually the humans behind them are compromised.
8
DigitaIBlack3 days ago
+3
This isn't like with an F-22. At all. You also can't just copy chip design that easily.
Most of the lead has *always* been manufacturing and to a lesser extent, chip design.
While China has accomplished some truly impressive stuff with DUV lithography, they're using quad-patterning and the yields are c***.
China is pretty stuck until they have EUV domestically, which they're working towards. Last I heard they're building some crazy setup that takes up an entire floor.
But until China manages to catch up with ASML and therefore Zeiss, they're not gonna be able to.
3
RandomPantsAppear3 days ago
+3
Also worth noting that the machines capable of manufacturing the machines that make these chips are made one place in Europe, with an enormous moat on the knowhow for making them - all of the experience in doing so exists one place.
3
Choice_Past73994 days ago
+4
Didn't Trump outright greenlight sales to China?
4
VanCityPhotoNewbie4 days ago
+1
Only not the latest generation technology. Sales of previous generation equipment is okay.
1
karateninjazombie4 days ago
+5
Gamers nexus did a 3 hour investigation video on this exact thing of GPU smuggling. It's wild, they take the main chips off consumer GPUs and put them on new custom designed PCBs with more ram. It's not a hanky operation either. A lot of it is automated.
5
Technical_Goat_31224 days ago
+2
Hope China manages to reverse engineer these and eventually start making their own chips which could be superior or atleast best Nvidia,AMD in pricing .
2
peterausdemarsch4 days ago
+9
What they need to reverse engineer is CUDA. Wich is already happening with great success. They don't even need stronger chips they just need more of them in clusters and the energy to run these clusters. Once Nvidia stops being the go to for AI training GPU prices will come down. (My guess)
9
npc_housecat4 days ago
-5
Far out, just sell China the chips and make bank on the sales. What they hell are they thinking giving up both sales and market share like that
19 Comments