News hardware The US has a solution to stop China from overtaking them and it goes through Nvidia
China demonstrates its great economic and technological power every year. Out of fear of China overtaking the United States technologically, Uncle Sam asked technology companies not to give too much to the Chinese, so Nvidia came up with a solution.
United States VS China: the technological race
China faces US restrictions that have imposed a law to prevent Chinese companies from procuring too advanced computer equipment. The United States wants to maintain its technological lead, while China has been progressing very rapidly for several years. Joe Biden’s country obviously has a certain technological edge, especially on the side of supercomputers and other machines that can benefit from artificial intelligence.
It was US National Councilor Jack Sullivan who proposed China’s restrictions plan last September.
In terms of export controls, we cannot, for some key technologies, limit ourselves to the sole aim of maintaining relative advantages over our competitors. We have long adopted a sliding-scale approach, which considers that we have to stay ahead by a few generations. This no longer corresponds to the strategic environment we find ourselves in today.
The United States produces only 12% of semiconductors, while China produces three quarters. The two countries are obviously not at war, but both are fighting a real technological battle. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a speech in which he discussed how the United States would now view China.
We will not try to block China from its major powers, except to stop it – or any other country – in their economic growths that could benefit their populations. But we will uphold and strengthen international laws, our agreements and our institutions to maintain that peace, that security and to continue to protect people’s individual rights and to ensure that we cooperate with China and all other countries.
The country doesn’t want to curb trade with China completely, but to make sure it “maintains a peace,” which they say is maintained by this shoulder-to-shoulder technological competition.
Nvidia has come up with a solution
But in this case trade does not stop, and therefore private companies have every interest in preserving their exports to other countries, including China, which represents very fertile ground.
This is the case of Nvidia, the famous company that produces GeForce graphics cards. The company is already well established in China but finds itself trapped by US legislation. Nvidia had to work around the problem and the fix was pretty simple, but effective.
Nvidia has created an electronic chip, the A800, which is a variation of the A100, which deflects the problem. In fact, the A100 is considered too powerful to sell to Chinese companies, which is why Nvidia is offering a limited chip to continue selling their products in China.
The interconnect interface goes from 600 GB/s to 400 GB/s with the A800, just below the US government authorized rating. The United States is worried, and does not dare to imagine what China could produce in terms of artificial intelligence in the coming years. Of course, other brands are likely to follow the trend, such as Intel or Apple in the coming months.
