[UPDATED] US Government Lifts RTX 4090 Export Restrictions, Easing Impact on China
UPDATE: As per new reports, all sales of the RTX 4090 in China will be restricted starting from the 17th of November. Read more here.
Last week, NVIDIA, in an SEC filing confirmed that the RTX 4090 would fall under the USG’s export restrictions. This effectively meant that any RTX 4090 sold in China would require a permit from the US Government. Being at sixes and sevens, the Chinese market saw the RTX 4090 almost doubling in price.
RTX 4090 Export Restrictions Removed
Today, NVIDIA has filed yet another 8-K SEC report which excludes the RTX 4090 from the list of restricted GPUs. To put things into context, the US Government mandates that GPUs that exceed a specific processing level, will require proper licensing.
As per NVIDIA’s latest report, the list includes the following Graphics Cards.
- A100, A800, H100, H800, and L40S
Using some proprietary benchmarks, GPUs scoring higher than 4800 points will fall under this category. We saw the RTX 4090 in the same list (Previous SEC Filing) a week prior, but that’s not the case anymore. The (New) filing reads:
“The United States Government informed NVIDIA Corporation, or the Company, that the licensing requirements of the interim final rule entitled “Implementation of Additional Export Controls: Certain Advanced Computing Items; Supercomputer and Semiconductor End Use; Updates and Corrections”, dated October 18, 2023, applicable to products having a “total processing performance” of 4800 or more and designed or marketed for datacenters, is effective immediately, impacting shipments of the Company’s A100, A800, H100, H800, and L40S products.”
NVIDIA SEC Filing (Oct 24, 2023)
Moreover, the export restriction is now in immediate effect, but only applicable to the aforementioned GPUs, which do not include the RTX 4090.
What Does this Mean For the GPU Market?
In light of all the ‘RTX 40 Super‘ rumors, there was a hunch that NVIDIA might launch an RTX 4080 Super to circumvent these restrictions. It seems that’s not the case anymore, however, we should still expect the Ada-Refresh lineup to see the light of day.
The sudden panic amidst the export-ban rumors has spread like wildfire in the Chinese GPU industry. As the news travels, we hope the Chinese market returns to the norm. Global consumers should not worry too much since most countries fall outside the USG’s provided list.
Source: NVIDIA’s SEC Filing
