A recent Reuters investigation has uncovered evidence suggesting Chinese universities and research institutes may have circumvented US sanctions on high-performance NVIDIA GPUs by purchasing servers containing the restricted chips. The sanctions tightened on November 17, 2023, prohibit the export of advanced NVIDIA GPUs like the consumer GeForce RTX 4090 to China. Despite these restrictions, Reuters found that at least ten China-based organizations acquired servers equipped with the sanctioned NVIDIA GPUs between November 20, 2023, and February 28, 2024. These servers were purchased from major vendors such as Dell, Gigabyte, and Supermicro, raising concerns about potential sanctions evasion. When contacted by Reuters, the companies provided varying responses.

Dell stated that it had not observed any instances of servers with restricted chips being shipped to China and expressed willingness to terminate relationships with resellers found to be violating export control regulations. Gigabyte, on the other hand, stated that it adheres to Taiwanese laws and international regulations. Notably, the sale and purchase of the sanctioned GPUs are not illegal in China. This raises the possibility that the restricted NVIDIA chips may have already been present in the country before the sanctions took effect on November 17, 2023. The findings highlight the challenges in enforcing export controls on advanced technologies, particularly in the realm of high-performance computing hardware. As tensions between the US and China continue to rise, the potential for further tightening of export restrictions on cutting-edge technologies remains a possibility.

On March 29th, the United States announced another round of updates to its export controls, targeting advanced computing, supercomputers, semiconductor end-uses, and semiconductor manufacturing products. These new regulations, which took effect on April 4th, are designed to prevent certain countries and businesses from circumventing U.S. restrictions to access sensitive chip technologies and equipment. Despite these tighter controls, TrendForce believes the practical impact on the industry will be minimal.

The latest updates aim to refine the language and parameters of previous regulations, tightening the criteria for exports to Macau and D:5 countries (China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, etc.). They require a detailed examination of all technology products' Total Processing Performance (TPP) and Performance Density (PD). If a product exceeds certain computing power thresholds, it must undergo a case-by-case review. Nevertheless, a new provision, Advanced Computing Authorized (ACA), allows for specific exports and re-exports among selected countries, including the transshipment of particular products between Macau and D:5 countries.

SMIC, China's largest semiconductor manufacturer, is reportedly assembling a dedicated team to develop 3 nm semiconductor node technology, following reports of the company setting up 5 nm chip production for Huawei later this year. This move is part of SMIC's efforts to achieve independence from foreign companies and reduce its reliance on US technology. According to a report from Joongang, SMIC's initial goal is to commence operations of its 5 nm production line, which will mass-produce Huawei chipsets for various products, including AI silicon. However, SMIC is already looking beyond the 5 nm node. The company has assembled an internal research and development team to begin work on the next-generation 3 nm node.

The Chinese manufacturer is expected to accomplish this using existing DUV machinery, as ASML, the sole supplier of advanced EUV technology, is prohibited from providing equipment to Chinese companies due to US restrictions. It is reported that one of the biggest challenges facing SMIC is the potential for low yields and high production costs. The company is seeking substantial subsidies from the Chinese government to overcome these obstacles. Receiving government subsidies will be crucial for SMIC, especially considering that its 5 nm chips are expected to be up to 50 percent more expensive than TSMC's due to the use of older DUV equipment. The first 3 nm wafers from SMIC are not expected to roll out for several years, as the company will prioritize the commercialization of Huawei's 5 nm chips. This ambitious undertaking by SMIC represents a significant challenge for the company as it strives to reduce its dependence on foreign semiconductor technology and establish itself as an essential player in the global manufacturing industry.

ZOTAC debuted a massive flagship GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB custom design graphics card last summer—the Prime Gamer Force (PGF) OC edition model was released as a China exclusive product. ZOTAC's PGF shroud design remains the largest on the market—381 mm (L) x 154 mm (W) x 74 mm (D)—even with downgraded silicon beneath the surface. NVIDIA's China-specific GeForce RTX 4090D GPU was introduced last December, as a sanction conformant substitute for the full-fat version—naturally, ZOTAC has prepared a revised PGF model. This week, Expreview has published an in-depth review of the GeForce RTX 4090 D PGF OC edition graphics card. They found that ZOTAC's cooling system—three 11 cm fans and a vapor chamber—offered: "high-frequency stability...comparable to that of water-cooled (solutions)."

The Chinese publication reviewed the GALAX RTX 4090 D Metal Master model in January—at the time, software restrictions prevented the implementation of significant overclocks. It was theorized that future updates or community workarounds could bypass limitations, but the latest review—of ZOTAC's "super luxurious" PGF edition—indicates that this GeForce RTX 4090 D GPU's OC potential is still constricted. VideoCardz has pulled out essential details from the Expreview article: "(The PGF) has high maximum TGP (530 W) and a powerful 28-phase power PCB design. Despite the technological headroom, the card struggles to offer much of the overclocking potential. The team from Expreview only managed to squeeze 3.7% more performance from this card. That's despite 24.7% more power theoretically available." An underwhelming overclocking aspect is counterbalanced by the premium-tier card's impressive performance stability—the review also praised ZOTAC's quiet cooling solution and usage of high-end "heat dissipation materials."

The publication of ASML's 2023 Annual Report has revealed some interesting insights into how the photolithography producer remains diplomatic in times of global tension. Peter Wennink (President, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board of Management) discussed his company's carefully considered tightrope act—here is his message to stakeholders: "In 2023, demand for our DUV systems continued to be strong, particularly in China. During the previous two years, our Chinese customers had received significantly fewer systems than they had ordered, due to global demand for our systems exceeding supply. However, the shifts in demand timing from other customers that we experienced in 2023 meant that we had the opportunity to backfill these orders for mature and midcritical nodes to China, while of course complying with export regulations." ASML is seemingly keen to continue doing business with Chinese customers, despite having to juggle with strict international trade rulings—as revealed in their financial report, trade in this region accounts for "26.3% of our 2023 total net sales." This places China in a second tier position, just behind Taiwan (29.3% of 2023 total net sale).

ASML was expecting to deliver a grand total of 600 DUV equipment units to Chinese customers by the end of 2025, but trade restriction adjustments nixed that avenue of business. The report's "Strategy and products" section highlights the company's concerns about narrowed lanes: "Geopolitical tensions may result in export control restrictions, trade sanctions, tariffs and more generally international trade regulations which may impact our ability to deliver our systems, technology, and services." China's leading foundry—Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC)—is reportedly targeting a 5 nm process node, although this would require a major readjustment of its existing collection of (older) lithography equipment. SMIC's flagship Shanghai location cannot upgrade to the most advanced DUV machinery in ASML's catalog, therefore workers are reliant on slightly antiquated gear (previously tasked with 7 nm manufacturing)—low yields and added expense are the anticipated headaches.

The first review of a Chinese-exclusive "RTX 4090D" GPU model hit the internet last week—Expreview received a sample GALAX RTX 4090 D Metal Master model not long ago, and their testing team proceeded to find out whether the nerfed version of NVIDIA's flagship gaming GPU was truly compromised in terms of performance. Effective October 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission placed restrictions on Team Green—thus blocking trade of units based on the "Ada Lovelace" AD102-300 GPU in China. In turn, a variant—AD102-250-A1—was prepared in order to confirm to new policies.

NVIDIA's China-specific GeForce RTX 4090D launched officially right at the end of 2023. Board partner GALAX seems to be leading the pack, with customized versions being sent out for evaluation. The GeForce RTX 4090D GPU arrives with a lesser configuration: 14,592 CUDA, 456 Tensor, and 114 RT cores—but the first review indicates that this only trails behind its uncompromised sibling by roughly 5 to 6% across sixteen games. It lags behind in Stable Diffusion benchmarks—an AI workload at 512x512 resolution shows a 10% difference, although the gaps narrows at 768x768 and 1024x1024.

A somewhat expected result of the November 17th export ban on RTX 4090 GPUs to China has been that AMD's top offerings; recently rumored to soon suffer the same fate, have been selling faster than AMD or its partners can make them. Predicting the worst, some OEMs such as Dell have allegedly already set their own self-imposed restrictions on the export of both Radeon and Instinct cards to China. Meanwhile insiders in board channels have not yet received any official warning that they can no longer sell RX 7900 XTXs or XTs to DIY markets, however vendors and consumers alike sense an oncoming storm and unable to get RTX 4090s are buying up as many of the high end Radeons as they can.

It's said that AMD's production capacity for this surge in sales has been underwhelming, and supply to Chinese board partners has been barely trickling in. This lack of incoming supply of the Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT, restriction or not, is creating a shortage of cards in China that is expected to impact the remainder of Q4 2023 and much of Q1 2024. With no immediate restrictions expected for AMD's top cards it's possible that they could react and ramp up exports to cover the demand, however that could be risky if AMD is trying to avoid being targeted.

NVIDIA's most recent FY3Q24 financial reports reveal record-high revenue coming from its data center segment, driven by escalating demand for AI servers from major North American CSPs. However, TrendForce points out that recent US government sanctions targeting China have impacted NVIDIA's business in the region. Despite strong shipments of NVIDIA's high-end GPUs—and the rapid introduction of compliant products such as the H20, L20, and L2—Chinese cloud operators are still in the testing phase, making substantial revenue contributions to NVIDIA unlikely in Q4. Gradual shipments increases are expected from the first quarter of 2024.

The US ban continues to influence China's foundry market as Chinese CSPs' high-end AI server shipments potentially drop below 4% next year
TrendForce reports that North American CSPs like Microsoft, Google, and AWS will remain key drivers of high-end AI servers (including those with NVIDIA, AMD, or other high-end ASIC chips) from 2023 to 2024. Their estimated shipments are expected to be 24%, 18.6%, and 16.3%, respectively, for 2024. Chinese CSPs such as ByteDance, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BBAT) are projected to have a combined shipment share of approximately 6.3% in 2023. However, this could decrease to less than 4% in 2024, considering the current and potential future impacts of the ban.

The U.S. Commerce Department seems to have thrown a big spanner into the NVIDIA machinery, by informing the company that some US$5 billion worth of AI chip orders for China falls under the latest US export restrictions. The orders are said to have been heading for Alibaba, ByteDance and Baidu, as well as possibly other major tech companies in China. This made NVIDIA's shares drop sharply when the market opened in the US earlier today, by close to five percent, dropping NVIDIA's market cap below the US$1 Trillion mark. The share price recovered somewhat in the afternoon, putting NVIDIA back in the trillion dollar club.

Based on a statement to Reuters, NVIDIA doesn't seem overly concerned, despite what appears to be huge loss in sales, with a company spokesperson issuing the following statement "These new export controls will not have a meaningful impact in the near term". The US government will implement these new export restrictions from November, which obviously didn't give NVIDIA much of a chance to avoid them and it looks as if the company is going to have to find new customers for the AI chips. Considering the current demand for NVIDIA's chips, this might not be too much of a challenge for the company though.

Phytium, a Chinese semiconductor company that faced U.S. government sanctions from 2021, has introduced its latest data center processor, the 64-core Feiteng Tengyun S2500. Designed for cloud and high-performance computing applications, this processor features a large-capacity shared L3 cache, enhanced security capabilities for cloud servers, and improved memory subsystem reliability. The Feiteng Tengyun S2500 features 64 FTC661 cores developed by Phytium, which are based on Armv8 ISA. Reportedly, the CPU features 64 MB of L3 cache and 512 KB of L2 per core, bringing the total to 96 MB of processor cache. Compared to the previous generation line, the S2500 brings an L3 cache and TDP of 150 Watts, up from 90 Watts of previous generation.

This is Phytium's first new CPU in several years, raising questions about its production capacity and access to foundries, given its sanctions-related restrictions. It is currently unknown which foundry will manufacture the Feiteng Tengyun S2500, and we expect to hear more about it as (if) units get shipped. So far only display units have made appearance. Nonetheless, the company has continued its hardware development efforts and garnered interest in collaborating with Huawei to unify hardware and software ecosystems, which has yet to come to fruition.

Today, the US authorities published the updated version of the advanced computing and semiconductor manufacturing equipment rule, imposing additional restrictions on export of advanced chip manufacturing technology. These regulations will become effective after a period of 30 days. Given the length and complexity of the regulations, ASML will need to carefully assess any potential implications. However, as to our business, from the information we received, it is our understanding that the new regulations will be applicable to a limited number of fabs in China related to advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

These export control measures will likely have an impact on the regional split of our systems sales in the medium to long term. However, we do not expect these measures to have a material impact on our financial outlook for 2023 and for our longer-term scenarios for 2025 and 2030, as communicated during our Investor Day in November 2022. ASML will seek further clarification from the US authorities on the scope of these new regulations. ASML is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations including export control legislation in the countries in which we operate.

The Chinese government introduced restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium (plus their chemical compounds)—both crucial materials in the computer chip manufacturing process—a couple of months ago. Big players within the semiconductor industry shrugged this off as a minor inconvenience, and simply shifted to more expensive sources. Prior to an August 1 implementation of new rulings, according to Reuters, China exported 36.48 metric tons of germanium, and 22.72 tons of gallium (starting January 2023). Customers were in a rush to acquire as much material as possible, before the "cut off" date—so 8.63 tons of germanium and 5.15 tons of gallium got shifted overseas throughout July.

Reuters has kept a watchful eye on the situation since then—its latest report states that "China's exports of germanium and gallium items plunged in August, the first month of the export controls, customs data showed on Wednesday (September 20)." A Ministry of Commerce spokesman, He Yadong, last week revealed that his department will be granting a limited number of export licenses to interested parties, on the condition that these local companies "meet relevant requirements." An undisclosed percentage of submitted applications have already received government approval. Signed paperwork reportedly gives the thumbs up to "dual use" purposes, implying that potential customers are in the military and civilian fields.

Liu Qingfeng, the founder and chairman of Chinese AI firm iFlytek (or HKUST Xunfei according to ITHome) shared his opinions of incoming Huawei GPU technology at this year's Yabuli Entrepreneurs Forum. His team has been collaborating with key figures at the multinational technology corporation on a product that he reckons is just as capable as NVIDIA's very mature A100 tensor core accelerator. Liu referred to the model as a "compute GPU" which implies that this is an all-new product—Huawei has kept quiet on the AI hardware front since the 2019 launch of its Ascend 910 AI accelerator, so the iFlytek presentation has hinted about Huawei's ambitions to take on Team Green within the Chinese deep learning and artificial intelligence market sector.

China has sharply increased imports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment in recent months, customs data reveals. The country's purchases of chip production tools surged to record highs of nearly $5 billion in June and July, a 70% increase versus the same period last year, which amounted to $2.9 billion. The spike comes right before export restrictions on advanced chipmaking equipment are implemented by the U.S. and its allies. The moves aim to slow China's technological advancement, but Chinese chipmakers are stockpiling to avoid disruptions. Much of the equipment comes from the Netherlands and Japan, which have imposed licensing requirements on certain tool exports. While it's unclear how many are affected, the rush suggests China wants to expand production capacity and buffer against supply chain issues.

Chinese firms like SMIC and YMTC rely heavily on U.S., Dutch, and Japanese suppliers for cutting-edge manufacturing equipment. They are utilizing imported tools to boost the output of mature chips not subject to controls, particularly for electric vehicles, renewable energy, and industrial applications. Significantly, imports from the Netherlands doubled as lithography machines were delivered to Chinese foundries. Purchases from Japan also rose as companies procured etching tools and wafer coaters after 2020 U.S. restrictions. Newly established foundries backed by local governments contributed as Beijing pushed chip production expansions. Despite export control challenges, China aims to keep advancing its semiconductor capabilities. The import spike highlights intensified efforts to build self-sufficiency using older technology not covered by current limits.

The Indian Government on Thursday announced restrictions on the import of pre-built laptop and desktop PCs, tablets, and convertibles. These restrictions take effect immediately. The decision is designed to get major PC manufacturers such as Dell, HP, Acer, Lenovo, and Apple, to manufacture their devices on Indian soil, or subject each individual PC model through a lengthy import licensing regime—essentially a penalty for not manufacturing locally. The new restrictions find several parallels to India's 2020 decision to restrict import of TVs, which caused major consumer electronics firms to rush to set up local assembly lines to keep up with the country's market demand.

The restrictions on the import of PCs is seen as complicating things for PC manufacturers, especially as the country heads into its biggest consumer cycle with Diwali (Q4-2023). India's current import restrictions on smartphones and TVs have caused most consumer electronics giants to set up assembly lines in India; however these lines barely contribute 20% of value-addition to the product (i.e. much of the product comes knocked down and is simply put together); however manufacturers are incentivized to localize more of their value-addition, through the country's performance-linked incentives (PLI) scheme. Certain whitebox ODMs have localized even PCB placement, and display panel manufacturing. India's ICT imports for the period of just Q2-2023 stood at $19.7 billion, the country clocks roughly $75-90 billion in ICT/PC sales per year.

Intel has responded to the high demand for advanced chips in mainland China by bringing its processor, the Gaudi2, to the market. This move comes as the country grapples with US export restrictions, leading to a thriving market for smuggled NVIDIA GPUs. At a press conference in Beijing, Intel presented the Gaudi2 processor as an alternative to NVIDIA's A100 GPU, widely used for training AI systems. Despite US export controls, Intel recognizes the importance of the Chinese market, with 27 percent of its 2022 revenue generated from China. NVIDIA has also tried to comply with restrictions by offering modified versions of its GPUs, but limited supplies have driven the demand for smuggled GPUs. Intel's Gaudi2 aims to provide Chinese companies with various hardware options and bolster their ability to deploy AI through cloud and smart-edge technologies. By partnering with Inspur Group, a major AI server manufacturer, Intel plans to build Gaudi2-powered machines tailored explicitly for the Chinese market.

China's AI ambitions face potential challenges as the US government considers restricting Chinese companies access to American cloud computing services. This move could impede the utilization of advanced AI chips by major players like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft for their Chinese clients. Additionally, there are reports of a potential expansion of the US export ban to include NVIDIA's A800 GPU. As China continues to push forward with its AI development projects, Intel's introduction of the Gaudi2 processor helps country's demand for advanced chips. Balancing export controls and technological requirements within this complex trade landscape remains a crucial task for both companies and governments involved in the Chinese AI industry.

China announced on Monday (June 3) that it would restrict exports of two rare metals——both crucial materials in the computer chip manufacturing process. The nation's Ministry of Commerce stated that their new measures were necessary to "safeguard national security and interests". The Chinese government is contending with several sanctions from Western countries—most notably their access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment is now heavily controlled. Reuters has contacted a number of foundries about the potential impact of rare material shipment limitations. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has shrugged it off as a minor inconvenience, their spokesperson stated: "After evaluation, we do not expect the export restrictions on raw materials gallium and germanium will have any direct impact on TSMC's production. We will continue to monitor the situation closely."

WIN Semiconductors Corp—a Taiwanese firm that specializes in the provision of gallium arsenide wafers—informed the news agency about its low-level reliance on Chinese mineral sources. They are able to sidestep and procure gallium and germanium from suppliers located in Germany, Japan, and North America. The Japanese Semiconductor Equipment Association stated that it was too early to tell whether China's export restrictions will result in material shortages. Supply chains could be disrupted to some degree due to China controlling over 90% of the world's gallium and germanium production, but DigiTimes Asia proposes that new sanctions will not prohibit production and export activities. According to experts in the field supply lines will continue to operate, with buyers required to jump through some extra hoops in order to gain approval for certain market segments. The purification of gallium and germanium is mostly controlled by American and Japanese entities—the processed form of these metals is used in semiconductor production—DigiTimes reckons that these firms will probably feel the initial impact of new trade restrictions.

News reports about Western Digital's implementation of new security measures started appearing online last week—My Cloud product owners were puzzled upon discovering that their access to cloud services had been blocked. Devices not updated with the latest firmware - version 5.26.202 (My Cloud) and 9.4.1-101 (My Cloud Home, SanDisk ibi) - were and continue to be barred from the start date effective June 15. This relatively new measure has been implemented in order to prevent further exploits of security vulnerabilities. WD is likely shoring up its online defenses following a major cyber attack on its My Cloud back in March, a hacker group demanded a hefty ransom fee for the return of private customer data. WD restored My Cloud services by mid-May, and released several software updates and security fixes.

According to a company security bulletin (issued last week): "Devices on firmware below 5.26.202 will not be able to connect to Western Digital cloud services starting June 15, 2023, and users will not be able to access data on their device through mycloud.com and the My Cloud OS 5 mobile app until they update the device to the latest firmware...Users can continue to access their data via Local Access." The latest fixes should protect customers from unauthorized access and ransomware attacks, but WD has not provided any further news about any ongoing negotiations with the hacker group behind the Spring data breach.

TikTok developer ByteDance, and other major Chinese tech firms including Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu are reported (by local media) to be snapping up lots of NVIDIA HPC GPUs, with even more orders placed this year. ByteDance is alleged to have spent enough on new products in 2023 to match the expenditure of the entire Chinese tech market on similar NVIDIA purchases for FY2022. According to news publication Jitwei, ByteDance has placed orders totaling $1 billion so far this year with Team Green—the report suggests that a mix of A100 and H800 GPU shipments have been sent to the company's mainland data centers.

The older Ampere-based A100 units were likely ordered prior to trade sanctions enforced on China post-August 2022, with further wiggle room allowed—meaning that shipments continued until September. The H800 GPU is a cut-down variant of 2022's flagship "Hopper" H100 model, designed specifically for the Chinese enterprise market—with reduced performance in order to meet export restriction standards. The H800 costs around $10,000 (average sale price per accelerator) according to Tom's Hardware, so it must offer some level of potency at that price. ByteDance has ordered roughly 100,000 units—with an unspecified split between H800 and A100 stock. Despite the development of competing HPC products within China, it seems that the nation's top-flight technology companies are heading directly to NVIDIA to acquire the best-of-the-best and highly mature AI processing hardware.

Bethesda tweeted out an information update directed at Xbox Series console owners - and it has caused a stir within the fanbase - Redfall will be locked to "Quality Mode" upon launch in early May. PC gaming enthusiasts will have plenty to laugh about with these newly announced graphical performance restrictions, set for the green team's pair of current generation consoles. The frame rate will be capped at a maximum of 30 frames per second on both Xbox Series X and S, under the "Quality" performance mode. The version tuned for Series X will be able to output at the 4K UHD resolution standard (3840 x 2160), and the pixel count will be reduced for Microsoft's weaker console offering, at 1440p QHD (2560 x 1440).

Bethesda states that a 60 frames per second "Performance Mode" for Xbox Series X|S will be added at a later (unspecified) date, presumably via an online patch issued through Xbox Live. No further details were provided regarding the decision to cap frame rates, all the more strange given that Redfall is due to launch very soon. Arkane Studios (the Austin, TX branch) declared last month that it was also working on a removal of the always online requirement for the game's single player element - again, no time period for release has been established for this reversal. Redfall has attracted mounds of controversy over the past two months - including Sony's attention through litigation.

The Japanese government, on Friday March 31, announced that it plans to place restrictions on its export of 23 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. This follows similar efforts announced by other nations, including the USA and the Netherlands. In a news conference, the Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), Yasutoshi Nishimura stated: "We are fulfilling our responsibility as a technological nation to contribute to international peace and stability." The press release makes no mention of a trade battle between the USA or China, but the implication is that METI is limiting the latter's access to Japan's most advanced chip making equipment.

Nishimura-san continues: "If our exports are not being re-appropriated for military use, we will continue exporting. We believe the impact on companies will be limited." The U.S. government has called on its allies to prevent China's access to semiconductor manufacturing technology in order to slowdown domestic technological and military advancement. Japan and the Netherlands have previously agreed, back in January of this year, to restrict exports to China of equipment that could be used to churn out sub-14 nm chips.