From PC Mag: It looks like Nvidia has halted sales of the RTX 4090 graphics card in China to comply with a US export ban blocking AI chip sales to the country.
Nvidia previously featured the RTX 4090—a $1,599 and up product—on its Chinese website. But the company has mysteriously deleted mention of the GPU, which VideoCardz first noticed.
The vendor also removed the RTX 4090 as a GPU you can buy in the country. Instead, Nvidia lists the next best option, the RTX 4080.
Nvidia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But a month ago, the company warned investors it would have to halt sales of the RTX 4090 in China, citing new US export regulations. The Biden administration is concerned that China continues to find ways to buy powerful chips from Nvidia, despite previous restrictions. So in October, the White House announced new regulations to close the loopholes. This includes preventing Chinese companies based in the country and elsewhere from buying loads of less powerful chips and combining them into a data center.
As a result, the new export restrictions have ensnared a wider number of Nvidia GPUs, including the RTX 4090, despite it being designed for consumers and gamers. In a stock exchange filing to investors, Nvidia noted that the graphics card exceeds “certain performance thresholds” found in the Commerce Department’s restrictions, which took effect last Friday.
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