US curbs AI chip exports from Nvidia and AMD to some Middle East countries

The US has expanded the restriction of exports of sophisticated Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices artificial-intelligence chips beyond China to other regions including some countries in the Middle East, Report informs referring to Reuters.

Nvidia said in a regulatory filing this week that the curbs, which affect its A100 and H100 chips designed to speed up machine-learning tasks, would not have an "immediate material impact" on its results.

Rival AMD also received an informed letter with similar restrictions, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that the move has no material impact on its revenue.

US officials usually impose export controls for national security reasons. A similar move announced last year signaled an escalation of the US crackdown on China's technological capabilities, but it was not immediately clear what risks were posed by exports to the Middle East.

In a separate statement, Nvidia said the new licensing requirement "doesn't affect a meaningful portion of our revenue. We are working with the US government to address this matter."

The US Commerce Department, which normally administers new licensing requirements on exports, did not immediately return a request for comment.

Last September AMD said it had received new license requirements that would halt exports of its MI250 artificial-intelligence chips to China.