• J0n__Snow@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      IMO the title is total bullshit. They even write in the first paragraph that AI cards incl the 4090 are banned.

      The reason for dismantling the cards is that they can make significantly smaller AI accelerators with the chips and the RAM.

      • -6h0st-@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Well it’s possible they buy from local market - gamers - offering good price. They can’t source AI cards like this. Not to mention it’s easier to source 4090 cards through unauthorized channels rather than AI card that’s not easily obtainable by general public.

      • VIPTicketToHell@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Yup and these have been bought in very large quantities before the ban takes into effect. Nvidia is also shipping tons to China per the article before the ban.

        • berogg@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          I wonder if that has anything to do with the 4090 shortage tech sites and channels were talking about a couple weeks ago? They were speculating because of a 4080Ti release, but maybe it’s this?

    • r2k-in-the-vortex@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      Yes, it is. But as you might imagine, an export ban on a consumer item is hardly watertight. Anyone can buy one and simply walk over the border. Who is there to stop that?

      That’s fine. All other export controls leak too. Export control in the end is just an extra barrier you force a country to jump over and that extra cost causes them to be uncompeditive on global market. They will still be plenty compeditive on local market with their parallel imported consumer cards.

      • AnIdeaMan@alien.top
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        1 year ago

        Correct but they need thousands if not tens of thousands of cards. Shipping a few im suitcases isn’t going cut it.

        • r2k-in-the-vortex@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          Give it enough money and the thousands of suitcases are going to organize themselves. Don’t underestimate how massive sneakernets can get, bulk of all baby formula consumed in China has been supplied like this, because nobody in China trusts to buy baby formula from local Chinese businessmen after the 2008 scandal.

      • upbeatchief@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        It securing the quantity need that would make this ban hurt, this ban can be effective if it kills Chinese enterprise ability for getting enough cards in a short enough time. And this is not even with considering middle men cost, I am betting on middle men making it shipping a card will cost the same as the card itself, we have seen this during the crypto boom.

        The us government is trying to kill Chinese ability to compete economically. Not the ability to compete outright.

        • agitatedprisoner@alien.topB
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          1 year ago

          It’s not about obstructing China economically it’s about preserving military supremacy so long as China is regarded as a threat to the international order. As long as China would insist on ruling Taiwan over the objections of the democratically elected Taiwanese government that means China is seeking to export authoritarian rule. That’s contrary to the advancement of democracy around the globe. China’s treatment of Hong Kong and Uighurs further evidences China’s antidemocratic tendencies. The reason to obstruct China from getting cutting edge AI and microchips is the same as the reason to obstruct Nazi Germany from enriching uranium, it’s not otherwise about the economics of it.

    • iprocrastina@alien.topB
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      1 year ago

      You gotta admit it’s a pretty neat brag when 4090 owners can legitimately say their gaming GPU is so powerful its a banned export under supercomputing technology controls.

      • ArseBurner@alien.topB
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        1 year ago

        Remember when the PS3 was banned? I thought it was a joke. And then the airforce made a supercomputer out of a cluster of PS3s…