The U.S. has announced new restrictions on advanced AI chips in a final push before Joe Biden leaves office. The aim is to protect U.S. dominance in technology crucial to national security. The new rules classify countries into three tiers, with China, Russia, North Korea, and other arms-embargoed nations barred from accessing advanced GPUs—key processors for AI development.
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00:00With just days until U.S. President Joe Biden leaves office,
00:04Washington has come out with new restrictions on its most advanced technology,
00:09this time focused on artificial intelligence chips.
00:13Throughout his presidency, Biden has imposed rule after rule
00:17to thwart China's access to cutting-edge chips and maintain U.S. tech dominance.
00:23This latest move goes a step further, putting countries into three groups,
00:28slapping a complete export block of advanced GPUs, the specialized processor AI needs,
00:35to these countries, including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
00:40On the other end of the spectrum are 18 of the U.S.'s closest allies and partners,
00:46which includes Taiwan, with unlimited access to its AI technology.
00:51The country's left, essentially the rest of the world,
00:54will have caps on how many AI chips it can have,
00:57with potential licenses for firms who follow Washington rules.
01:02I mean, certainly it does seem like they're trying to get something out
01:06as sort of a last win for their administration.
01:08But there is, I think, almost a sense within industry and even governments
01:12that the United States just simply keeps asking and asking and asking
01:16other governments, other companies to play ball with the United States government
01:20without any actual sort of give back.
01:24Those in the business of AI chips have been criticizing the plan,
01:28including California-based AI powerhouse NVIDIA.
01:32The firm's Taiwan-born CEO, Jensen Huang,
01:34just recently unveiled a GPU that's twice as powerful as its previous model.
01:40Here it is.
01:42The company says the latest controls are misguided
01:45and threatens to squander the U.S.'s tech advantage.
01:49Other firms, like Microsoft and ChatGPT owner OpenAI,
01:53had more muted responses.
01:55Microsoft saying it was confident it could comply with the high security standards.
02:01Your NVIDIAs and your Oracles got caught offside or blindsided by this.
02:05But I think Microsoft, in many ways,
02:07had been sort of underwriting what a potential playbook or pilot for this could look like.
02:11Well, Microsoft had been negotiating the G42 deal with the UAE government for months.
02:16In fact, I think in many ways that served as the pilot
02:19for how we think about exporting chips to all these other bands of countries.
02:24For Taiwan, though the new rules won't apply,
02:27its firms like TSMC will still need to be vigilant,
02:31wary of where its restricted advanced tech may end up.
02:35The chipmaking giant has already cut ties with a Singapore-based client
02:40after a TSMC chip was found in a phone by Huawei.
02:44The Chinese telecoms giant blacklisted by Washington since 2019.
02:49A potential wildcard is incoming President Donald Trump,
02:53whose administration will have to enforce the rules.
02:56But with his own tough approach on China,
02:59high-tech controls may just be a point of continuity in this transition of power.
03:05Chris Ma and Joyce Sun for Taiwan Plus.