The United States has temporarily suspended restrictions on technology exports to China in an effort to avoid damaging trade talks with Beijing and set the stage for a potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping this year. About this informs Financial Times.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security has been instructed recently to avoid aggressive moves against China. Against the background of these actions, the American and Chinese delegations are to hold a third round of trade talks in Stockholm — after previous meetings in Geneva and London.
Despite Trump’s desire to avoid escalation, some officials say the United States is holding back because of fears Beijing could retaliate by restricting exports of rare-earth elements and magnets, as it did in May.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration planned to ban technology exports to China. In April, the president’s team notified Nvidia of plans to block the supply of the H20 chip, designed specifically for the Chinese market, after the Biden administration restricted exports of more powerful models. However, Trump reversed his position after direct lobbying by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
The H20 model has become the subject of a standoff between security officials, who believe the chip could strengthen China’s military sector, and Nvidia, which says export restrictions only encourage technological breakthroughs by Chinese manufacturers.
On July 28, a group of twenty national security experts and former officials plan to write an open letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnyk expressing their concerns about the matter.
“This move is a strategic mistake that jeopardizes the economic and military superiority of the United States in the field of artificial intelligence,” – says the document.
Among the signatories of the letter are David Feith, a former senior technical adviser at the National Security Council in the current Trump administration, Lisa Tobin, who worked at the National Security Agency during the president’s first term, and Kyle Bass, a Trump supporter and founder of the Hayman Capital Management investment fund.
The authors of the letter claim that the H20 is a “powerful accelerator of China’s advanced AI capabilities” and even surpasses Nvidia’s H100 chip, which is already banned from being exported to China, in at least one important respect.
In particular, it talks about the H20’s advantage in performing AI functions known as “inference” as opposed to model training. It is this ability, according to experts, that can become key in the creation of autonomous combat systems, intelligence platforms and technologies for military purposes.
