Nvidia (NVDA-3.12%) on Monday quickly slammed newly released Biden administration rules to regulate chip sales to foreign countries.
The White House published a swath of new guidelines early Monday to curb the sale of AI chips from U.S. firms such as Nvidia to specific countries and companies. The administration said the rules would “strengthen U.S. security and economic strength.”
But Ned Finkle, vice president of government affairs at Nvidia, called the policies “unprecedented and misguided.” In a company blog post, he slammed the outgoing administration for jeopardizing global progress on AI.
“In its last days in office, the Biden Administration seeks to undermine America’s leadership with a 200+ page regulatory morass, drafted in secret and without proper legislative review,” Finkle said. “This sweeping overreach would impose bureaucratic control over how America’s leading semiconductors, computers, systems and even software are designed and marketed globally.”
Nvidia stock fell almost 3% in pre-market trading Monday.
Under the new guidelines, 18 key U.S. allies and partners would not be affected by the restrictions. Companies that meet high security and trust standards set by the U.S., and are headquartered in countries that are considered close allies and partners, would have the chance to obtain “Universal Verified End User” (UVEU) status. This designation would allow them to locate parts of their computational power in allied countries, and buy up to 320,000 advanced GPUs over the next two years.
Nvidia argued that these controls are an overreach, and would “do nothing to enhance U.S. security.”
“Rather than mitigate any threat, the new Biden rules would only weaken America’s global competitiveness, undermining the innovation that has kept the U.S. ahead,” Finkle said.
At the same time, Finkle praised the first Trump administration for laying “the foundation for America’s current strength and success in AI, fostering an environment where U.S. industry could compete and win on merit without compromising national security.”
With President-elect Donald Trump set to take office in exactly one week, Big Tech leaders from Google (GOOGL-0.80%) chief Sundar Pichai to Meta (META+0.94%) CEO Mark Zuckerberg have been cozying up to Trump. They’re hoping to benefit from favorable policies, more lax regulation, and a pro-innovation environment that they hope will allow them to go full steam ahead on their AI ambitions — and beyond.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang himself said last week week that he’s ready to meet with the incoming Trump administration to help with AI policy.
“I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang told Bloomberg Television about Trump. He added that he has not yet been invited to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
— Britney Nguyen contributed to this article.
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