The first couple of paragraphs within Anthropic's "Securing America's Compute Advantage: (Our) Position on the Diffusion Rule" article are standard fare. Roughly half-way through a read of this policy-related piece, the North American (Amazon-backed) AI startup makes some bizarre claims about the smuggling of AI-oriented products into China. Given ongoing global tensions and growing industry demands, these activities are somewhat expected—but Anthropic leadership described very specific methodologies. As stated within their "Chip Smuggling is a Major Threat" passage: "China has established sophisticated smuggling operations, with documented cases involving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of chips. In some cases, smugglers have employed creative methods to circumvent export controls, including hiding processors in prosthetic baby bumps and packing GPUs alongside live lobsters." Specific bits of hardware were not mentioned in this section, but the author later alludes to the frictionless transfer of thousands of "NVIDIA H100 advanced chips" into Chinese territories.

In a statement issued to CNBC, a Team Green spokesperson dismissed Anthropic's fanciful claims: "American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled in 'baby bumps' or 'alongside' live lobsters." This very public spat has received mainstream attention; with further coverage documenting additional "to and fro" barbs. NVIDIA criticized Anthropic's anti-foreign competition stance: "China, with half of the world's AI researchers, has highly capable AI experts at every layer of the AI stack. America cannot manipulate regulators to capture victory in AI." Amusingly, Anthropic's operations rely heavily on Team Green hardware—many online critics reckon that top US AI companies are jostling for priority access to cutting-edge GPUs/accelerators. In reaction to NVIDIA's dismissal of their report, a company spokesperson retorted with: "Anthropic stands by its recently filed public submission in support of strong and balanced export controls that help secure America's lead in infrastructure development and ensure that the values of freedom and democracy shape the future of AI."

A sign of the times indeed, when secretive, smuggling boats add NVIDIA CMP graphics cards to their cargo instead of other illegal goods. That's what just happened in Hong Kong, where authorities with the Hong Kong Customs and Excise Department seized a smuggling fishing boat that was unsuspectingly (or maybe not so unsuspectingly) anchored just outside the Hong Kong International Airport. While some of the smuggled goods were par of the course for the authorities - exotic foods and high-value, low-footprint technological gadgets such as smartphones and tablets - the smugglers were also carrying 300 unmarked NVIDIA CMP 30HX GPUs.

That they were unmarked means they were deviated from the assembly lines before they were actually processed for final packaging, and thus we're now looking at definite proof of shipments being deviated from their intended destinations - which means this happens not only for CMP cards, but also for consumer-grade RTX 30-series. Another day at the office of post-COVID, production shortages, and mining boom, as it relates to computer hardware pieces.