U.S. Govt Restricts Shipments of GeForce RTX 4090 to China, Other Countries

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Too powerful to be shipped to China without a license.

GeForce RTX 4090
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Under the terms of the latest export rules imposed by the U.S. government, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia can no longer ship a number of their high-performance processors to China and a number of other countries without an export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce. In fact, the restrictions are so severe that shipments of Nvidia's AD102 processors are also restricted, which may have an impact on the supply of GeForce RTX 4090 graphics cards.

Given the demand for Nvidia's AI GPUs across the globe, the company does not expect its financial results in the near term to be affected by the new export rules. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how these new export rules affect the production and prices of GeForce RTX 4090-based graphics cards, which are generally made in China. In a bid to comply with the new export rules, Nvidia will have to initiate production of GeForce RTX 4090 and other AD102-based products outside of China.

Transferring production to Taiwan is perhaps not a problem for the vast majority of brands as the most of them are headquartered in Taiwan. There is one big exception, though. Colorful, which is one of Nvidia's major customers and which happens to be one of the world's largest graphics card manufacturers, only operates in China. Nvidia may attempt to supply as many AD102 GPUs to its partner as possible in the coming weeks, though it remains to be seen how this affects the supply of GeForce RTX 4090 products in other countries. 

Starting from November 16, 2023, Nvidia will be unable to ship its A100, A800, H100, H800, L40, L40S, and GeForce RTX 4090 cards and modules for AI and HPC computing to China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam without an export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security. 

All the aforementioned products, except the GeForce RTX 4090, are data center GPUs for AI, HPC, and cloud applications. The GeForce RTX 4090 is the best graphics card money can buy, assuming price isn't a limiting factor, but since the new restrictions curb exports of high-performance processors in general, it falls under the new regulations. 

"The licensing requirement may impact the Company'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 the Company to transition certain operations out of one or more of the identified countries," a statement by Nvidia in its filing with the SEC reads.

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    I'd like to think this could reduce prices and improve supply of the 4090, but in reality I'm sure it will have the opposite effect. Makes me wonder if this transition to making 4090 cards outside of China is already underway, and perhaps that's why we're seeing an upward trend in 4090 prices of late.
    Reply
  • ivan_vy
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    I'd like to think this could reduce prices and improve supply of the 4090, but in reality I'm sure it will have the opposite effect. Makes me wonder if this transition to making 4090 cards outside of China is already underway, and perhaps that's why we're seeing an upward trend in 4090 prices of late.
    more like gray market will push the prices up considering the GPU alternatives are not in the same league in performance terms, AMD is working tirelessly to improve its software stack for AI to address this issue and make more desirable its professional products.
    Reply
  • Blastomonas
    Can someone clarify which parts of these graphics cards is assembled in China? I was under the impression that the equipment to produce such cards was already a restricted export.

    In practice how likely is it that this will restrict any supply in China? Im sure that they will still be available for purchase via different routes.
    Reply
  • peachpuff
    Poor jensen, one less gold plated leather jacket for him...
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    Blastomonas said:
    Can someone clarify which parts of these graphics cards is assembled in China? I was under the impression that the equipment to produce such cards was already a restricted export.

    In practice how likely is it that this will restrict any supply in China? Im sure that they will still be available for purchase via different routes.
    I think a lot of the chip placement and soldering onto the PCB happens in China, probably the final assembly (heatsink, fans, etc.) as well. The latter is easier to move out of China, but placement and soldering of chips would be more difficult. This whole thing (keeping chips and tech from China) feels like it's going to be pretty ineffective in the long run, though.
    Reply
  • Blastomonas
    Thanks for the clarification. I see a lot of articles these days that create the impression that the tough sanctions are being applied and that they are effective, but im not convinced that they are. I also wonder if nvidia and other companies believe that the sanctions are a good idea in principle or if they are only concerned with potential lost revenue. The cynical part of me would not be completely surprised if there are some work arounds.
    Reply
  • TCA_ChinChin
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    I think a lot of the chip placement and soldering onto the PCB happens in China, probably the final assembly (heatsink, fans, etc.) as well. The latter is easier to move out of China, but placement and soldering of chips would be more difficult. This whole thing (keeping chips and tech from China) feels like it's going to be pretty ineffective in the long run, though.
    They are about 10 years too late if they wanted to keep China from developing a domestic compute capability. I don't think anyone could have predicted how things would have gone 10 years ago though.
    Reply
  • JamesJones44
    TCA_ChinChin said:
    They are about 10 years too late if they wanted to keep China from developing a domestic compute capability. I don't think anyone could have predicted how things would have gone 10 years ago though.
    I'm not so sure about that... There were several people who came out after Clinton officially opened the US companies to doing open business in China around the 2000s that felt it would end badly. In 2000 the US and other countries were already having issues with IP theft, yet congress and POTIS pushed the deal through anyway.

    https://carnegieendowment.org/2000/03/20/why-rush-to-favor-china-pub-236
    Reply
  • ivan_vy
    Lewinator56 said:
    All this fuss about china spying, putting backdoors in telecoms tech, and restrictions to prevent acces to hardware... And Cisco announced today a 0 day exploit on 10s of thousands of its systems being actively exploited in the wild... And it's not the first. I guess the same scrutiny doesn't apply to domestic tech.

    These restrictions do nothing but damage the global free market economy and push the Chinese to become even more self-dependant. Anyone with half a brain knows the current restrictions have done next to nothing to stem advanced chip development in China, if the new hisilicon chip is anything to go by, but rather have forced china to invest in its own industries, hence why SMIC can now manufacture 7nm chips. The advanced stuff being restricted obviously has the potential for nefarious applications, but it's billed as a national security measure to slow Chinese military hardware development... You don't need a cutting edge RTX4090 to power a generation 5 jet fighter... You need a reliable and tested MCU probably based on a z80 or using risc V. This cutting edge military hardware was designed 15-20 years ago with that tech.

    I fear that continued restrictions will fragment the global computing market, and not to the benefit of the US, if it does indeed decide to restrict access to RISC-V the rest of the world won't follow suit, so it's a self destructive policy. Why do business in the US if you can't do global business with other major economies. China is going to develop domestic tech on par with US domestic tech within the next few years, but without US oversight or control over hardware they used to make that china bought.
    true, military tech no need to be cutting edge but reliable, if the ban happened 20 years ago it would be effective but the profits were so sweet for corporations to let pass on cheap manufacturing , now it just forces them to speed up the development.
    Reply
  • alan.campbell99
    Was Saudi Arabia included in previous restrictions? I had figured this was mostly about restricting China, Russia and Iran.
    Reply