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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps there is an opportunity for China to close the compute gap by renting compute from hyperscalers through a complex web of shell entities similarly to how the US procured titanium for the SR-71 during the Cold War.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/in-1960s-russia-sold-titaniu...

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/titanium-russia-was-s...

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Trump reversed course on the NVIDIA ban. It's now China that is blocking their companies from buying NVIDIA chips. So the shell entities would be to get around Chinese, not USian restrictions

That's not true. First there is still a licensing and quota scheme on the US side for the H200s. Secondly China blocked them for use in inferencing. Thirdly Chinese companies don't want them for training because newer chips are more cost effective.

> Thirdly Chinese companies don't want them for training because newer chips are more cost effective.

Please read the FTA. Deepseek is literally explicitly talking about wishing they could get their hands on H200s

> Secondly China blocked them for use in inferencing.

This seems to be false unless you can provide a source. I tried looking into it

> First there is still a licensing and quota scheme on the US side for the H200s.

A major reversal from Trump's outright ban. As I stated.

He says he needs 200,000 GB300s or Huawei Ascend 950s. Now, the GB300 is much faster. So, probably he's just paying a little lip service to the 950 because of political pressure and would prefer the former. It's a moot point though because Hauwei can't manufacture with a low enough defect rate currently.

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