US Closer to Approving Nvidia's Advanced AI Chip Exports to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia expects to get access to Nvidia's high performance chips 'within the next year'

Saudi Arabia is optimistic about gaining access to U.S. chipmaker Nvidia's high-performance chips, which would enable it to develop and operate the most advanced artificial intelligence models. Speaking to CNBC on Thursday, a top official at the Saudi Data and AI Authority, Abdulrahman Tariq Habib, said the kingdom expected to make such a stride in the next year. "I think within the next year," Habib, Deputy CEO of SDAIA's strategy management office, told CNBC's Dan Murphy after being asked about a potential timeline. It's a significant expectation given that the United States' strict export controls have thus far prevented the chips' export to the kingdom. Habib made the comments on the sidelines of GAIN, Saudi Arabia's international AI summit, which took place in Riyadh this week. It "will mean a lot" for Saudi Arabia to have access to the chips, Habib said -- in this case, the Nvidia H200s, the firm's most powerful chips, which are used in OpenAI's GPT-4o. "It will ease business between Saudi and U.S.," he said. "It will also open a lot of doors for building the capability, the computational capabilities, in the kingdom. But most importantly, it's not only the computational capability that's important. We worked hard in the past three years in building capacity, in human capacity, we also build data capacity as well. So we are working and collaborating with all [of the] international community and contributing [to] be one of the top active countries in data analysis."

US closer to greenlighting Nvidia chips for Saudi Arabia, Semafor reports

The U.S. government is considering allowing Nvidia to export advanced chips to Saudi Arabia, which would help the country train and run the most powerful AI models, Semafor reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The sales of the chips were a main but unofficial topic at GAIN, Saudi Arabia's global AI summit, the report said. Attendees of the summit, including some who work for the Saudi Data and AI Authority, told Semafor that the country is making efforts to comply with U.S. security requirements to expedite the acquisition of the chips. The Biden administration imposed sweeping new curbs on AI chip exports last year, in a bid to cut off more avenues for China to obtain them, imposing a licensing requirement on their shipment to the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries. The Saudi government is expecting shipments of the company's most advanced chips, Nvidia H200s, according to the report. The H200 was first used in OpenAI's GPT-4o, a multimodal platform capable of realistic voice conversation with the ability to interact across text and image. Saudi Arabia has taken steps to limit its involvement with Chinese firms, while keeping the door open to China should the United States halt the kingdom's access to the most advanced U.S. chips, the report said, citing people with knowledge of Saudi policies. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment on the report. The U.S. Department of Commerce declined to comment on the specifics but said "export control decisions regarding licenses, entity listings and any future policy actions are the subject of a rigorous interagency process including the Departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy". (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Alan Barona and Shilpi Majumdar)

U.S. gov may green light export of Nvidia's advanced AI processors to Saudi Arabia: Report

The U.S. government is weighing the possibility of allowing Nvidia to export advanced AI GPUs to Saudi Arabia. These processors would aid the kingdom in developing its own cutting-edge large language models (LLMs) and AI services. Thus, the country would be able to diversify its economy, reports Semafor. At the same time, the U.S. government wants to ensure that its adversaries, such as China, will not get access to these GPUs through the cloud. The possible sale of Nvidia's AI GPUs, such as H100 and H200, was a key albeit unofficial topic at the Global AI Summing (GAIN) in Saudi Arabia recently. The event brought together representatives from companies like Groq, Google, and Qualcomm, alongside Saudi government officials. Last November, the U.S. government obliged Nvidia (and its partners) to get an export license from the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security if they sell advanced AI or HPC processors (such as A100, A800, H100, H800, L40, L40S, and GeForce RTX 4090) to entities in China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. Such licenses are usually reviewed with a presumption of denial, which is damaging to the plans of the Middle Eastern nations to diversify their economies beyond oil. In response, Saudi Arabia has been working to meet U.S. security requirements to gain access to Nvidia's H200 processors, according to Semafor's sources at Saudi Data and AI Authority. Nvidia and the U.S. government spokespeople declined to comment. Nvidia's H200 GPUs are the most advanced offerings that Nvidia can ship right now. These processors are essential for developing LLMs like OpenAI's GPT-4 or Meta's Llama 70B. One of the U.S. government's primary concerns is about Saudi Arabia's history of collaboration with Chinese tech giants like Huawei. So, the country had to reconsider its ongoing work with these companies. At GAIN, there was a noticeably smaller presence of Chinese participants, signaling a pivot toward the U.S. In previous years, Chinese companies like Alibaba and Huawei played a more prominent role, but this year saw fewer of their representatives on the convention floor. Still, while Saudi Arabia has reduced its collaboration with Chinese firms, it has kept the option open in case the U.S. restricts access, Semafor reports. On the other hand, the U.S. needs to maintain a balanced approach in this situation. While it wants Saudi Arabia to reduce its ties with China, it must also weigh the implications of allowing sensitive intellectual property to flow into the kingdom. Despite these concerns, deals between Saudi Arabia and major tech companies, such as Groq's partnerships with Neom and Aramco, continue to flourish. Saudi Arabia is currently competing with the UAE (whose AI leader G42 also works both with U.S.-based Cerebras and China's Huawei) in the AI race. Both countries face challenges due to the absence of advanced AI hardware capable of training large LLMs in sufficient quantity. The lack of access to these processors has slowed the progress of tech companies in the kingdom, limiting their ability to keep pace with the rapid advancement of AI technologies in the U.S. and China. Despite the challenges, Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in AI and leveraging its abundant energy resources, which are critical for powering large-scale AI systems. However, the country still relies on foreign expertise to develop and implement advanced technologies. Yet, some experts remain skeptical of Saudi Arabia's ability to become a global tech hub, given its reliance on external knowledge, its human rights issues, and its harsh environment, the report says.

US closer to greenlighting Nvidia chips for Saudi Arabia, Semafor reports

Attendees of the summit, including some who work for the Saudi Data and AI Authority, told Semafor that the country is making efforts to comply with U.S. security requirements to expedite the acquisition of the chips. The Biden administration imposed sweeping new curbs on AI chip exports last year in a bid to cut off more avenues for China to obtain them, imposing a licensing requirement on their shipment to the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries. The Saudi government is expecting shipments of the company's most advanced chips, Nvidia H200s, the report added. The H200 was first used in OpenAI's GPT-4o, a multimodal platform capable of realistic voice conversation with the ability to interact across text and image. Saudi Arabia has taken steps to limit its involvement with Chinese firms, while keeping the door open to China should the United States halt the kingdom's access to the most advanced U.S. chips, the report said, citing people with knowledge of Saudi policies. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment on the report, while the the U.S. Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City; Editing by Alan Barona)

U.S. considering Nvidia chip exports to Saudi Arabia- report (NASDAQ:NVDA)

The US government is close to allowing Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to export its AI chips to Saudi Arabia, news publication Semafor reported citing unnamed sources at Saudi Arabia's AI summit, Gain, held in Riyadh. The Gain summit, running from September 10 to 12, saw representatives from AI players Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Groq speak at the event. Saudi Arabia is working close to meet the security requirements of the U.S. after shipments of Nvidia's (NVDA) chips were limited earlier in 2024 over the country's ties with China. In May, U.S. officials reportedly slowed licenses to chipmakers to send large-scale amounts of AI accelerators to the Middle East, amid a national security review of AI development in the region. The U.S. has been looking to curtail China's access to AI chips or chipmaking tools, including working with allies Japan and the Netherlands. Semafor's report suggests Saudi Arabia may be switching towards the U.S. as well, with this year's Gain summit seeing noticeably fewer attendees from China. The Saudi government is reportedly moving away from Chinese firms but wants to still keep an avenue open to the country if the U.S. holds on to its cautious stance against the Middle Eastern nation.

Nvidia AI Chips Headed to Saudi Arabia, US Reassesses Export Ban - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Saudi Arabia's increased AI involvement prompts U.S. reconsideration of its chip embargo. Nvidia Corp's NVDA advanced artificial intelligence chips could soon make way to Saudi Arabia as the U.S. contemplates its advanced semiconductor sanctions on the country it had imposed in 2024. The Saudi government is eying Nvidia's H200 chips, Reuters cites U.S. and Saudi officials at Saudi Arabia's Global AI Summit (GAIN). The U.S. initially imposed advanced semiconductor sanctions on China in 2023, citing national security concerns. Also Read: AMD Gains Ground in AI Chip Market, Oracle Exec Confirms Growing Demand: Report In 2024, the embargo on Saudi Arabia followed for its alleged proximity to China. Interestingly, Nvidia AI chips continue to enter China via smuggling and other channels. Saudi Arabia's engagement in the AI sector has increased, as evidenced by its participation in AI-driven initiatives and partnerships to reduce its reliance on Chinese firms. This has prompted the U.S. to reevaluate its embargo on the country. Nvidia's quarterly print left the Street unimpressed, which led to a broader industry selloff. Analysts, including Wedbush Securities analyst Matt Bryson and Oppenheimer analyst Rick Schafer, maintain Nvidia as the critical AI play as Big Techs, including Microsoft Corp MSFT, Amazon.Com Inc AMZN, and Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL, splurge on their AI ambitions. Nvidia Stock Prediction For 2024 Equity research can be a valuable source of information for learning about a company's fundamentals. Analysts create financial models based on the fundamentals and expected future earnings of a company to arrive at a price target and recommendation for the stock. Shares of NVIDIA have an average 1-year price target of $154.27, representing an expected upside of 31.63%. Because of differences in assumptions, analysts can arrive at very different price targets and recommendations. No analysts have bearish recommendations on NVIDIA, while 42 analysts have bullish ratings. The street high price target from Rosenblatt is $200.0, while the street low from DA Davidson is $90.0. Nvidia stock has risen 161% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the stock through the SPDR S&P 500 SPY and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF VOO. Price Action: NVDA stock is up 1.20% at $118.31 at the last check on Thursday. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs