- As per the report, the draft rules are not intended as a means to ban exports from Nvidia, but rather, as a way for the U.S. government to monitor the AI industry.
- AI companies, as well as governments of countries seeking the chips, would need permission from the U.S. Commerce Department to purchase the accelerators.
- The approval process is likely to depend on the volume of computing power required, as per the report.
Officials in Washington are reportedly working on draft regulations that would give the government power over global artificial intelligence chip exports to other countries, a move that could impact Nvidia Corp. and
Advanced Micro Devices Inc., among others.
According to a report from Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, the proposed legislation would mandate that all semiconductor companies seek approval from the U.S. government for exports of AI accelerators to any other country in the world.
Shares of NVDA slipped nearly 2% at the time of writing, while AMD shares declined more than 3%. Other chip companies like Micron Technology, and Intel shares also declined.
Conditional Approval
As per the report, the draft rules are not intended as a means to ban exports from Nvidia, but rather, as a way for the U.S. government to monitor the AI industry. AI companies, as well as governments of countries seeking the chips, would need permission from the U.S. Commerce Department to purchase the accelerators.
The approval process is likely to depend on the volume of computing power required, as per the report. Large clusters would likely require pre-clearance from the government before seeking export licenses.
For instance, up to 1,000 of Nvidia’s latest GB300 GPU exports would have a fairly straightforward review process with some exemptions, as per Bloomberg’s report. However, higher power and larger clusters from companies would likely require stricter rules, including disclosure of business models or permitting site visits by the U.S.
For much larger deployments, for instance ones that require over 200,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs, and owned by only one company in the country, the government would likely have to get involved with the U.S. government. As per the report, the U.S. would likely require strict security as well as investments in American AI for approval, although the scale of investments have not been specified in the draft rules yet.
The report also noted that the framework has not yet been finalized, as U.S. officials are still providing their expertise, and the draft could change, or even be abandoned.
The U.S. has been in an AI race with China, seeking to overtake the Asian country and establish dominance in the space. U.S. President Donald Trump had previously banned the sale of Nvidia’s top chips to Chinese companies, although he recently allowed its H200 chips to be exported under certain conditions.
How Did Stocktwits Users React?
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around NVDA shares dipped from ‘extremely bullish’ to ‘bullish’ territory over the past 24 hours amid ‘normal’ message volumes.
One bullish user said the export rules would likely have minimal impact on Nvidia’s revenue.
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