Joe Biden deals one final blow to China's AI industry

« Global AI must run on American rails »: five days after being announced by news sources Bloombergthe departing administration of Joe Biden finally dealt a final blow to Chinese industry. The American Department of Commerce published this Monday, January 13, its new regulations that will limit the sale of semiconductors intended for AI to China and other “adverse” countries.

In a document of more than 200 pages, Washington describes an entirely new global licensing system for exports of the most advanced AI technologies. It adds to the four waves of restrictions already issued since October 2022, intended to hinder China's technological development. For years, Washington has sought to limit the ability of American chipmakers, such as Nvidia and AMD, to sell advanced processors to Beijing. Some rules have also been extended to countries allied with the United States. This time, the new regulations aim to ensure that cutting-edge artificial intelligence is developed by the United States and its allies, excluding China.

Also read: How the United States deprived China of semiconductors… for better and for worse

Allied countries, banned countries, restricted countries

Concretely, the world map is now divided into three parts:

the 18 allied countries of the United States retain unrestricted access to chips developed by Nvidia, the American semiconductor giant, and other local or allied companies. Among them are Japan, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, Canada, New Zealand, as well as the majority of European countries (such as the Netherlands, Germany, France, the Kingdom -United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden but not Portugal or Switzerland);
countries already under American arms embargo such as China, Russia, but also Iran, Iraq, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, etc. will no longer be able to import these semiconductors at all;
for all other countries in the world such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or the countries of South America and Southeast Asia, caps limiting the number of artificial intelligence chips that can be imported are imposed. . These countries will be able to overcome these limits by concluding special agreements with the American government.

The development of AI under American control

With these new rules, AI development will remain under the control of the United States and its allies, and out of the hands of adversaries who could use it to strengthen their military, carry out cyberattacks and threaten the United States. , specifies the official press release.

The objective is also to maintain the most advanced artificial intelligence models within the borders of the United States and its allies, said Jake Sullivan, President Biden's national security adviser, quoted in the press release. of the Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency of the United States Department of Commerce.

« We had to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in order to bring back to American territory » the infrastructure needed to form the most advanced artificial intelligence like chips, batteries and other industries, he added. These new rules bring “ greater clarity to our international partners and industry, and counter serious circumvention and related national security risks posed by countries of concern and malicious actors who may seek to use advanced U.S. technologies against us “, he continued.

A new validated end user status

Any order of chips with a collective computing power not exceeding 1,700 GPUs will not require a license, but for others, the new standards will have to be respected.

Companies that are not located in “prohibited” countries will, however, be able to avoid it provided they respect “ a set of U.S. government security requirements and human rights standards “. They will then obtain the status “ validated universal end user (UFV)”, a status which would allow them to “ develop and deploy AI in secure environments around the world ».

Note that this also concerns the construction of data centers around the world: American companies and those located in allied countries will have to obtain authorization from the Bureau of Industry and Security of the Ministry of Commerce in the event of use of American technology. The new rules do not apply to developments of open source AI models such as Meta's Llama, also indicates the press release from the US Department of Commerce.

For Nvidia, this is an “unprecedented and ill-advised” rule

For American semiconductor manufacturers, these new rules will undermine American competitiveness. Ned Finkle, Nvidia's vice president for government affairs, describes this regulation as ” unprecedented and ill-advised “. In a blog post this Monday, he believes that it “ threatens to derail innovation and economic growth worldwide ». « Rather than mitigating any threat, Mr. Biden's new rules would only weaken America's global competitiveness, undermining the innovation that has kept the United States ahead “, he specifies.

Five days earlier, the world leader in semiconductors already described “ a last-minute rule restricting exports to most of the world “. What “ constitute a major policy change that would not reduce the risk of misuse, but would threaten U.S. economic growth and leadership “. Businesses around the world now have one year to comply with the new rules.