Countries in the Middle East, traditionally dependent on oil exports, have recently been trying to increase their own computing power related to artificial intelligence. US authorities are concerned about these ambitions and are preparing new restrictions on the supply of American-origin computing accelerators to a number of Gulf countries.
Image source: NVIDIA
Bloomberg reported this, citing its own sources. The new approach would impose certain restrictions on the number of export licenses issued to allow the supply of AMD, Intel and Nvidia compute accelerators to certain Gulf countries. As usual, this will be done under the pretext of complying with US national security interests. Last month, representatives of the US Department of Commerce already formulated the first rules regarding the supply of these accelerators to the countries of the Middle East, and now the conditions for such deliveries will be clarified.
A certain dialogue in this area has been established between the United States, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In general, the main concern of US authorities is the possibility of advanced computing accelerators falling into the hands of Chinese developers. In this regard, the distrust of the US authorities extends not only to the countries of the Middle East; certain countries of Asia and Africa are under restrictions. In total, the list of restrictions concerns more than 40 countries. For now, the ability of the current American presidential administration to adopt new restrictions in this area remains in question, since the powers of Joseph Biden will soon expire. Some experts also warn that excessive US bans could increase demand for Chinese-origin accelerators in third countries. American officials are going to build the process of exporting components for AI systems in such a way that security guarantees are provided both by companies in other countries that receive this equipment, and by the governments of the corresponding countries.