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H200 semiconductors


The US administration has now decided to let Nvidia export its advanced H200 semiconductors to the People's Republic of China.

A think tank that keeps track of such things, the Institute for Progress, says that the H200 is approximately six times as powerful as the previously most advanced chip the US has been exporting to the PRC.

The usual (bipartisan) policy has been to try to keep China behind the cutting edge on such chips, given our competitive situation with them with regard to AI, and for that matter given the potential for a military showdown in which computer sophistication could well play a part. 

There was a time when I would have hailed such a decision.  As a sort of laissez-faire reflex.  What business does the US government have telling Nvidia they can't sell to willing buyers? Heck, there is a neat legend surrounding Nvidia and how it was founded after a late-night BS meeting in a Denny's restaurant. Sort of like the legends of how firms that would be Giants were started in college dorm rooms.  But different. 

Now that I have accepted the legitimacy of nation-states, I see the point in limiting the exports, and I am no longer so fully impressed by start-up mythologies.  

Another pertinent fact: the H200 is said to be outclassed only by one other Nvidia product the "Blackwell."  The difference in power between the Blackwell and the H200 is a good deal less than the difference between either of them and the rest of the available hardware array. 

It just seems that Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is one of the cadre of President Trump's billionaire cronies and is benefitting from his sucking up. 

Is Nvidia going to contribute to helping to get a certain ballroom built? 

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  1. HenryDecember 18, 2025 at 7:29 AM

    Christopher, I don't understand why, before you accepted the legitimacy of nation-states, you would not have limited exports. It seems to me that what is relevant to the question whether to limit exports is not the legitimacy of nation-states; it is their existence. The potential for a military showdown in which computer sophistication could well play a part exists whether or not the governments of China and the U.S. are legitimate.

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