The Biden administration could shed light on a possible new rule for exporting high-performance artificial intelligence chips to China “relatively soon,” a White House official said Friday.
Tarun Chhabra, a National Security Council official who focuses on technology issues, said letters sent by the US Department of Commerce to Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc last month asked them to stop shipments of chips. that can be used for applications such as natural. language processing and nuclear weapons research were likely precursors to further regulation.
Speaking during a speech at an event organized by the Brookings Institution, he did not specify what form this regulation could take.
“They tend to be followed by a public rule or regulation, setting out a rationale and comprehensive approach,” Chabbra said of the letters. “I think we’ll be able to say more about that relatively soon.”
Reuters reported earlier this month that U.S. Commerce was preparing AI chip export restrictions that could be released as early as October.
The Sept. 1 news that chip companies had received letters sent Nvidia shares plummeting after the company revealed the letters could affect up to $400 million in revenue in its current fiscal quarter. .
US officials did not specify how the new restrictions might be drafted.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said earlier this month that the letters set out restrictions on chips with a combination of a chip’s performance and its ability to connect to other chips to quickly move from large amounts of data around a data center, criteria that only affected a small number. Nvidia products.
In his remarks on Friday, Chabbra confirmed that the restrictions only affect the most advanced chips and are “structured as a combination of computing power but also interconnect speed.”