US restricts China’s access to some NVIDIA chips, Vietnam consequently impacted

In a move to further restrict China’s access to critical technologies, the U.S. has imposed additional licensing requirements for exports of Nvidia chips to some countries, including Vietnam.

In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nvidia said the move followed the “Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items; Supercomputer and Semiconductor End Use; Entity List Modification” ruling, released by the Bureau of Industry and Security, under the U.S. Department of Commerce.

The ruling implements controls on advanced computing integrated circuits (ICs), computer commodities that contain such ICs, and certain semiconductor manufacturing items, according to the bureau. The ruling is effective from November 17, 2023 to January 1, 2026.

Per the ruling, Nvidia’s impacted products are integrated circuits exceeding certain performance thresholds, including but not limited to A100, A800, H100, H800, L40, L40S series, and RTX 4090 gaming graphics card, the technology company said.

Any system that incorporates one or more of the covered integrated circuits (including but not limited to NVIDIA DGX and HGX systems) is also covered by the new rules, Nvidia added.

The additional licensing requirements for exports are for China and country groups D1, D4, and D5, but excluding Israel. Vietnam belongs to the D1 and D3 country groups.

The licensing requirement may impact Nvidia’s ability to complete development of products in a timely manner, support existing customers of covered products, or supply customers of covered products outside the impacted regions, and may require Nvidia to transition certain operations out of one or more of the identified countries, Nvidia said.