Brian J. Chen in Phenomenal World:
In late July, the Trump administration released “America’s AI Action Plan,” its executive strategy to fast-track domestic AI infrastructure and achieve technological supremacy. Like other US policies of any serious ambition, it bears an obvious insistence on bolstering the nation’s security against China. The Plan’s coverpage tagline is bold, if uninspired: “Winning the Race.”
Even so, Washington’s national security experts aren’t entirely satisfied with Donald Trump’s technology policy. Of late, their ire has been directed at the administration’s decision to resume the sale of certain Nvidia chips to China. The chips in question, H20 graphics processing units, were designed to comply with Biden-era export restrictions; Trump’s Commerce Department rescinded those rules but later blocked H20 sales, anyway. They are not class-leading, but their technological edge at the stage of AI inference makes them extremely valuable. Accordingly, their sale to foreign adversaries, especially to the Chinese, has been the centerpiece of recent US geopolitical strategy. It took personal lobbying by Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to convince the President to drop the ban, arguing that it is better for America’s interests for China to depend on US-designed chips than to not have them at all.
For those that have spent the last half decade or more engaged in sophisticated supply-chain wargaming, the reversal of US semiconductor controls has been received as anathema.
More here.
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