The future of research projects at Chinese universities and research institutes is bleak following the U.S. ban on exports of Nvidia Corp’s A100 and H100 and Advanced Micro Devices AMD MI250.
The U.S. recently halted the supply of sophisticated U.S. computer chips to power China’s artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
The development marks a significant continuation of the U.S. campaign to thwart China’s technological prowess as tensions mount over the fate of Taiwan, a province that China considers illegitimate, but which America considers legitimate and where Nvidia and almost all other major chipmakers make chips.
After reviewing more than a few publicly published government tenders over the past two years, there is high demand and need for Nvidia’s signature A100 chips from places like Tsinghua University, which spent more than $400,000 last October on two Nvidia AI supercomputers, each powered by four A100 chips, and the Institute of Computing Technology, which also spent about US$250,000 on A100 chips.
In July of this year, the school of artificial intelligence at the Chinese Academy of Science University spent about $200,000 on high-tech devices, including a server partially powered by A100 chips. Jinan University’s Cybersecurity College spent more than US$93,000 on an Nvidia AI supercomputer in November 2021, while its school of intelligent systems science and engineering spent nearly US$100,000 on eight A100 chips last month alone.
Other institutes and universities supported by municipal and provincial governments, such as those in Shandong, Henan, and Chongqing, bought A100 chips.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.