Simple, the Trump admin cannot roll out new restrictions/export controls targeting China because the Chinese can/will retaliate
We are not in the H100 era, where the supply chain was largely concentrated in Taiwan/Korea/Japan
Becuz of shortages, Nvidia & hyperscalers have been forced to qualify Chinese suppliers, especially in the PCB supply chain and electrical components like transformers
China had a chokehold on optics (optical fibers and transceivers) from the beginning, and this is just getting amplified as optical content in DCs is increasing Coherent CEO went to China with the Trump delegation, asking for InP for lasers I want u guys to study the optical fiber preform supply chain, and who are the largest suppliers
Btw, Chinese exposure is also spreading to other parts of the AI supply chain High end MLCCs use Dysprosium Oxide and China supplies most of it to Japanese producers Tungsten ban from China is causing the prices of WF6 gases to shoot up
If PTFE is finalized for M9/M10 CCL, then Shengyi and Chinese PTFE suppliers will have a huge chokehold over Nvidia Google is in talks with Envicool for the supply of cooling components If diamond-copper composites are adopted as heat spreaders for GPUs, then China will establish a chokehold there as well, since most of the synthetic diamonds are produced there and China is at the cutting edge of this tech
I haven't even talked about the use cases of gallium, germanium, tellurium, antimony, bismuth, fluorine, terbium, yttrium, ferrite cores in the AI supply chain, and how China has a chokehold there
The Trump admin is constrained in a lot of ways and can't unilaterally export control stuff
I share concerns about China’s access to advanced AI models, but if the admin feels so strongly about this, I have a series of questions it should answer:
- Why did it loosen export controls to allow AI chip sales to China, which allow China to build its own Mythos? - Why is it not enforcing existing export controls that would prevent China from smuggling AI chips from Southeast Asia and other countries? - Why is it not enforcing existing export controls that would prohibit Chinese companies from training advanced AI models on remotely accessed AI chips? Or imposing tighter controls on remote access? - Why has it still not closed a loophole it created that allows Chinese front companies outside China from making AI chips at TSMC or Samsung? - Why has it not tightened controls on China’s access to semiconductor manufacturing equipment (which have not been updated in over 18 months - the longest the US has ever gone without updating them)? - Why has it not imposed equivalent controls on all advanced AI models being served to China/Chinese companies? - Why did it restrict access to all countries and foreign nationals accessing Mythos/Fable, not just China?
If the admin was serious about addressing the challenges posed by China in AI, it would be using export controls to address all of these questions and build a comprehensive strategy to prevent China from building or obtaining advanced models. But over the last 1.5 years, it has loosened or ignored controls on China, and only opened new loopholes in controls it inherited. If the admin truly has deep concerns about China’s access to advanced models, it has to act accordingly. It isn’t.
