Jumping the trade barrier |
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is the latest global tech company to try and overcome the trade walls that the US is erecting around China. Legally, of course. But it’s not going so well, as even the modified artificial intelligence accelerator that AMD fashioned specifically for China has been rebuffed by the Department of Commerce.
Santa Clara-based AMD, whose headquarters is a brief walk away from AI chip lynchpin Nvidia Corp.’s, launched its flagship MI300 chip late last year to go head-to-head with its California neighbor. It moreover wants to compete in the China market, where Nvidia has already released several less-powerful iterations of its best AI accelerators to comply with US export controls.
This is where AMD’s tweaked MI309 enters the picture. It’s not clear how capable this chip is, but it apparently still had too much juice for Commerce to let AMD sell to China without a license. I’d been asking people in China since Nvidia introduced its China-specific A800 in 2022 — a sanction-compliant version of its flagship A100 — whether rivals Intel Corp. or AMD might do the same. It took a while.
Those in the country’s AI engineering ecosystem told me at the time that the preference was to use Nvidia’s chips — and that no one was really entertaining alternatives, especially for training AI models in vast data centers. AMD, for its part, said that the US restriction on shipping advanced AI silicon to China wouldn’t have a material impact on its revenue.
After its A800, Nvidia debuted an H800 chip last year for major customers in China. Eight is thought a lucky number in the country, hence the nomenclature. But Commerce has put a stop to both of those endeavors.
In October, the US again tweaked its export rules to capture all of Nvidia’s made-for-China chips. So, more recently, Nvidia launched yet more downgraded chips, including the H20 and some others. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says she’s looking into those too.
That’s the landscape that AMD is trying to navigate. You might ask why AMD hasn’t taken more lessons from Nvidia’s frustrations, or why Nvidia keeps customizing chips for China when Washington has signaled the intent to freeze China’s AI advances. I’ve been asked those questions several times and I don’t have a clear answer other than the China market is too sweet to give up on.
While enthusiasm remains, transparency has subtly diminished. Nvidia’s A800 specs were public, with Chinese server makers touting them in their marketing materials. All of those links have since gone dark, and I can’t unearth the specs for the H800 or H20 from Nvidia’s Chinese customers. Same goes for the MI309.
The US measures may end up turning counterproductive, as one of their effects is to protect China’s market for domestic AI accelerators. Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has said as much, naming Huawei Technologies Co. as a formidable rival.
Shenzhen-based Huawei is a de facto national tech champion for China and is developing its own AI chips as well as chipmaking expertise. Its website touts the slogan “Ascend to Pervasive Intelligence” and it has the business network and national backing to make its products pervasive in Nvidia and AMD’s absence.
I’m watching to see if Huawei’s AI chipmaking threat grows big enough to convince US officials to relax the constraints they impose on their own semiconductor designers. Until then, AMD might have to keep throttling down its hardware.—Jane Lanhee Lee