Nvidia: orders its data centre partners to reduce their exposure to China (FT)

(Il Sole 24 Ore Radiocor) - Nvidia is instructing its data centre partners, which provide cloud computing services, to reduce their exposure to Chinese customers. The Financial Times reports this, adding that in recent months the US chipmaker has verbally informed its customers of the requirement to sell at least 51 per cent of their services to non-Chinese companies. The move, the newspaper explains, poses a further threat to the ability of Chinese tech firms to compete with the US in the field of AI by restricting cloud computing agreements that previously allowed access to US chips. “Many Chinese firms have relied in the past on such leasing contracts for advanced AI activities, including model training,” reports the FT. “These additional compliance rules apply to Nvidia’s customers globally and not just to data centres in Asia, two of the sources said: However, they only apply to future contracts and not to existing leasing agreements.”

“Data centres and cloud services based on American chips,” said Nvidia, “form the foundation that American manufacturers of hardware and software need to compete globally. Long-standing US policy encourages every cloud service to rely on American infrastructure and to gain market share wherever possible.”

fon