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U.S. officials told AMD that a less powerful chip it had designed specifically with U.S. export restrictions in mind was still too powerful to sell in China, and that the firm needed to obtain a license from the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security to sell the chip, the Bloomberg report said.
The U.S. had reinforced restrictions on the export of key AI-linked technology to China in 2023 in an attempt to limit Beijing’s access to the cutting-edge technology required to develop and run AI models.
President Joe Biden had introduced the curbs in 2022 to prevent Beijing from using AI in military applications.
AI darling NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) is also attempting to greenlight a less powerful chip for Chinese markets. While AMD has had a relatively limited presence in the world’s second-largest economy, it has ramped up efforts in recent months to make a dent in the market.
Still, leading Chinese AI developers Tencent Holdings Ltd (HK:0700) and Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU) recently signaled they had stockpiled enough Nvidia chips to fuel the development of their in-house AI bots for at least one to two years.
