Comment by maxglute
3 days ago
No they're exactly the same, except Manus more retarded than Nvidia and Supermicro.
1. US had wiffle waffle export control policies on what TIER of compute that was exportable. When policies were unclear and compute threshold shifted, Biden admin signalled blank understanding of "presumption of denial" in interregnum while policy figured out exact controls. Nvidia stopped exporting until clarity. That's what due diligence / compliance means.
2. Manus created AI algo in PRC and hence under PRC purview. Fired their PRC team and thought incorporating in Singapore was loophole to transfer PRC controlled tech to US for fat paycheck. PRC was signalled before sale finalizes the Singapore loophole was not some lawfare gotcha to circumvent export controls. This was PRC version of presumption of denial. Ultimately PRC gets to decide if Manus technology CREATED IN PRC is exportable, and under what conditions. PRC company in Singapore fine, using Singapore to transfer to US... not fine. The amount of signals Manus got was similarly clear. PRC writings were talking about art13 of PRC export controls being triggered long before sales. Manus did the retarded and illegal (treasonously) thing and decided to go through with sale and forced PRC hand, when due diligence meant you know, not. AKA Manus did a supermicro but more egregious.
America so friendly they have to export control PRC... prevent US talent from working in PRC semi amirite. Oh wait, turns out when it comes to national security / duo use tech both sides are wildly not business friendly and can play the same geopolitical game. This hasn't happened in America, because quite frankly US businesses are not retarded enough to flaunt US national security instruments due to US gov extraterritorial reach. Manus thought they can do so with PRC who has less extraterritorial = reach, and now PRC slapping them as example. Also no one's arrested yet, just exit ban for ongoing investigation. But would not be surprised if they do end up getting arrested, because they wildly, knowingly in the wrong.
The U.S. restrictions on Nvidia compute were clear and extremely widely reported on for years prior to Supermicro's sales. That's why Nvidia created special Chinese-market versions of their GPUs, e.g. the H800 and H20, which Supermicro was free to sell at the time (although eventually those were banned as well, which was similarly widely reported on and well known). The rest of your post is, similarly, basically nonsense.
You mean the widely reported and well known industry confusion around TPP revision and timeline of ban a800/h800, first 30 days then immediately i.e. it was moving goal posts / wiffle waffled and anything but extremely clear. US used presumption of denial to stop NVidia from selling A800 and H800 when US gov had no solid idea what TPP threshold to set, Nvidia had to wait months for BIS to specifically determine denial bucket for H20 (notification requirement). This directly analogous to Beijing hinting to Manus to hit the breaks for clarity... which you know Nvidia did in absence. Nvidia did not ILLEGALLY sell POTENTIALLY/UNDER EVALUATION export controlled goods, which Manus did. Nvidia HALTED ~3B in PRC orders and ate like ~5B inventory tax due to regulatory fog. If Nvidia sold, they would have done a supermicro, this comparison of Nvidia correct behavior vs supermicro and manus incorrect behavior, and you can bet your ass someone at Nvidia was going to get the supermicro/manus treatment.
Your grasp of subject matter and timeline is actually, complete nonsense.