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(Bloomberg) — Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. is looking into details of three new supercomputers being developed by Nvidia Corp. for China, after vowing earlier this month to restrict any new chips that give the Asian country AI capabilities.
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“We look at all the details of every new game, to make sure it doesn’t violate the export order,” he said in an interview on Monday with Bloomberg News during a visit to Nashua, New Hampshire.
“We talk to Nvidia often, and I have to say they are a good partner,” he added. “We have a close relationship with them. They share information. “
When asked about the US actions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said Tuesday that they “harm the rights and interests of Chinese companies and will not help the global sustainability and business supply chains.”
He added in a regular press conference in Beijing that the actions are against “the principles of the market economy and fair competition.”
Nvidia, based in Santa Clara, California, is in the process of developing Chinese-made chips after the US imposed an export ban to block the export of semiconductors that it planned first by the company for China. The new team follows China’s guidelines that Commerce announced earlier this fall, CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in Singapore last week.
In response to Raimondo’s latest comments, Nvidia said it is working with the US government in following its clear rules and looking to “provide reliable data processing to customers around the world.”
Raimondo warned companies this month that the U.S. can and will further strengthen the authorities to capture new technologies that could give Beijing a threat. “If you rearrange a hole in a special cutting line so they can do AI, I’ll be in control the next day,” he said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California.
The Commerce Department declined to say whether it plans to limit Nvidia’s innovations but reiterated that it will continue to update the rules in response to a potential threat.
–With assistance from Ian King and Philip Glamann.
(Updates and comments from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)
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