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(Image credit: Nvidia) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has once again called the U.S. government to revise the previous administration's AI processors export restrictions, arguing that these regulations hinder American companies from fully participating in global markets, according to a report from Bloomberg. However, the current administration seems to disagree, as it plans to further restrict exports of AI GPUs so it can use them as bargaining chips when negotiating trade deals with other nations, according to Reuters. "I am not sure what the new AI Diffusion Rule is going to be, but whatever happens to be, it it really has to recognize that the world has changed fundamentally since the previous AI diffusion rule was was released," Huang said at the Hill and Valley Forum, where business leaders and lawmakers gather to discuss technology and national security, according to Bloomberg Podcasts. "We need to accelerate the diffusion of American AI technology around the world, so the policies and encouragement from the administration really need to be behind that."According to the AI Diffusion framework introduced by the Biden administration, access to advanced AI chips such as Nvidia’s H100 is only unrestricted for companies based in the U.S. "Tier 1" nations (a group of 18 allied nations). Those located in "Tier 2" nations face annual limits, capped at roughly 50,000 units of H100-class processors, unless they obtain verified end user (VEU) approval. (However, firms from Tier 2 regions can import up to 1,700 units per year without requiring an export license — these smaller purchases do not count toward the 50,000-unit national cap.)For countries under arms embargoes — "Tier 3" — including China, Russia, and Macau, nearly all shipments of advanced AI processors are effectively barred. The Trump administration is currently evaluating this tiered structure to enhance its clarity and enforceability.Nvidia has criticized Biden's AI Diffusion Rule, saying that restrictions of American GPU exports will support development and proliferation of competing hardware, software, and standards — specifically those developed in China. Therefore, Nvidia and its CEO have been advocating for change. While the Trump administration agrees that change is needed, it looks like it may not be the change Nvidia and other American hardware developers are hoping for.Under the proposed revisions, the tiered model may be replaced by a global licensing regime involving formal agreements between governments. This would enable the U.S. to negotiate access on a case-by-case basis, giving the U.S. government more leverage in trade discussions. Officials are also considering a change to the volume of chips that can be exported without formal approval. Currently, shipments of less than 1,700 H100-class units can be made with only a notification; this threshold may be lowered to 500 units.Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross confirmed this approach is under consideration, though no decisions have been finalized, according to Reuters.If the new rules are applied, Nvidia's success will depend not on the capabilities and performance of its GPUs, but rather on trade deals inked between the U.S. government and other nations. Needless to say, at least some nations might prefer to deal with China's Huawei — which is just behind Nvidia, according to Huang."China is not behind anybody, China is right behind us, we are very, very close," Huang said. "There is no question that Huawei is one of the most formidable technology companies in the world, and they are incredible in computing, they are incredible in networking technology, and in software capabilities, all of the essential capabilities to advance AI. And they have they've made enormous progress in the last several years."Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware NewsletterGet Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. TOPICS Huawei

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(Image credit: Shutterstock) Today over at X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk confirmed xAI's Grok is getting a new update. The Grok 3.5 release is still in beta and won't be available to the general public. However, SuperGrok subscribers will be getting an early peak at the new system starting next week. The exact release date for the beta has yet to be confirmed.This release comes on the heels of speculation that Musk is planning to raise tens of billions to build an AI supercomputer comprised of one million GPUs. There have also been allegations that xAI has been powering their current Colossus supercomputer facility by means of illegal generators.One of the leading features highlighted by the announcement is Grok 3.5's ability to provide unique answers to technical questions. More specifically, Musk highlights support for complex topics like electrochemistry and rocket engines with a notable degree of accuracy. While other AI systems can provide answers to technical questions, Grok 3.5 is doing so using a different approach.Many AI platforms will scrape the internet for data and pull answers together using information provided by external sources. In this case, however, Grok 3.5 is creating answers from scratch using a "reasoning" model. This means that the answers it provides are potentially unique and not taken from existing copy on the internet.This approach seems similar to DeepSeek R1, which also implements a type of reasoning model. This enables a more dynamic experience that isn't reliant on potentially plagiarized content, as well as being more capable in terms of answering complex questions. However, this type of technology comes at a cost, requiring much more computing power. That's likely why xAI is looking for more ways to expand its processing potential.We expect to hear more details on the performance of Grok 3.5 in the coming weeks. It's important to note again that this is a beta release so there may be variance in the output of the official release. Until then, we can only speculate on the outcome.Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware NewsletterGet Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.

(Image credit: Huawei) Huawei's next-generation HiSilicon Ascend 910D AI processor is expected to offer better performance than Nvidia's H100, reports Reuters. The new processor will be slower on a chip vs chip basis compared to Nvidia's Blackwell B200 and Blackwell Ultra B300 GPUs, never mind the next-generation Rubin GPUs slated to launch next year. However, Huawei's approach of building pods with hundreds of processors should allow the Ascend 910D to compete against pods based on Nvidia's current Blackwell and upcoming Rubin GPUs. Huawei is preparing to start tests of its most advanced artificial intelligence processor, the Ascend 910D, with the performance goal of surpassing Nvidia's H100 and offering a domestic alternative amid U.S. export restrictions. According to sources, Huawei has approached several local companies to assess whether the new Ascend 910D chip meets performance and deployment requirements. Initial samples are expected by late May. Separately, Huawei plans to start large-scale shipments of its dual-chiplet Ascend 910C AI processors to Chinese customers (and probably full systems based on the chips) as early as next month. The majority of of these processors were reportedly produced by TSMC for a third-party company. It remains to be seen whether the Ascend 910D will be made by China-based SMIC, or whether — nearly five years after the U.S. government restricted Huawei's access to leading-edge semiconductor production capabilities — Huawei will once again find a way to circumvent U.S. sanctions. Reaching Nvidia H100 performance levels won't be easy for Huawei. The company's latest dual-chiplet Ascend 910C offers around 780 BF16 TFLOPS of performance, whereas Nvidia's H100 can deliver around 2,000 BF16 TFLOPS. In order to achieve H100 performance levels, Huawei will have to redesign the internal architecture of the Ascend 910D and possibly increase the number of compute chiplets. To stay competitive in the AI industry next year, Huawei will have to achieve performance comparable to that of AI clusters developed in the U.S. This year, the company introduced its CloudMatrix 384 system with 384 Ascend 910C processors. It can reportedly beat Nvidia's GB200 NVL72 in certain workloads, but at the cost of significantly higher power consumption due to dramatically lower performance-per-watt. It also has over five times as many 'AI processors' as an NVL72 rack. Whether the interconnect can scale well to the required number of processors remains to be seen. Without access to leading-edge process technologies, it will become significantly more difficult for Huawei to maintain competitive positions next year. Nvidia is on-track to introduce its codenamed Rubin GPUs for AI and HPC in 2026. Rubin GPUs are set to be made on TSMC's N3 (or a more advanced) fabrication process, and they should offer even higher performance-per-watt than the current-generation Blackwell GPUs. Rubin GPUs are slated to offer around 8,300 TFLOPS of FP8 training performance, and presumably half that for BF16 — about twice the performance of the B200. Huawei's Ascend 910D and next-generation CloudMatrix systems with 384 of such processors could theoretically offer competitive AI performance on the rack level. However, it remains to be seen what performance benefits Huawei's Ascend 910D and Nvidia's Rubin GPUs will offer compared to existing offerings. Also, it should be noted that Nvidia will barely be able to sell its high-performance Rubin GPUs in China, so for that market Huawei won't really have a direct competitor. Regardless of performance or efficiency, Huawei's Ascend 910D processors will likely become China's workhorses when it comes to AI training in the coming years. Given the strategic importance of AI, the power consumption of the Ascend 910D (or any other domestic AI processor) will not be a limiting factor, as the number of deployed units could offset the efficiency of Nvidia's (or AMD, Intel, Broadcom, etc.) AI processors. The main limiting factor for China will be its ability to produce enough processors — either domestically, or overseas using proxy companies.Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware NewsletterGet Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. TOPICS Huawei

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