Nvidia and Anthropic have publicly locked horns over the impending enforcement of the U.S. government's new AI Diffusion Rules. According to a CNBC report, an Nvidia spokesperson has described Anthropic's assertions that the Chinese sometimes go to extraordinary lengths to smuggle "large, heavy, and sensitive electronics" as "tall tales."
More specifically, a spokesperson for Nvidia told CNBC that, “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.’”
In other words, Nvidia challenged the notion that the Chinese would smuggle those types of electronics, but we've seen plenty of examples of creative smuggling attempts, like smuggling CPUs in baby bumps or smuggling GPUs alongside live lobsters.
While Nvidia's stance might have merit if we consider the scale of these bizarre smuggling operations (these attempts were with smaller processors or discrete graphics cards as opposed to large rack-scale server solutions used to train frontier models), Chinese Customs has documented these exact types of smuggling occurrences. While these weren't rack-level solutions, systems equipped with discrete graphics cards can be used to train smaller AI models or for research and development, and today's high-end graphics cards are easily classified as large, heavy, and sensitive electronics. Check out the above links for more details on those particularly peculiar cases.
Furthermore, what we see is probably just the tip of the iceberg. And that's to say nothing of suspect GPU sales in Singapore and Malaysia, with the former reportedly under investigation by the U.S. government.
This situation seems to have come to a head as the new AI Diffusion Rules, designed to prevent hostile nations like China from gaining advanced AI technologies from the West, are set to come into force starting on May 15. The Biden administration formulated these rules toward the end of his term (they were published in January).
In one corner, Nvidia is keen to continue supplying as many high-end GPUs to China as the country can absorb, and it is allowed to supply.
Meanwhile, Amazon-backed and U.S.-based AI firm Anthropic naturally wishes for a ready supply of AI accelerators stateside, with fewer competitors to push pricing up. It reportedly has plans for bigger and better data centers to propel its fortunes. Moreover, it pleads the case for keeping transformative AI technologies in the U.S. "in alignment with American values and interests."
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