alt Hacker NewsNoteworthy that Z.ai, maker of the just released near-frontier GLM 5.2, has already been on the Entity List since Jan 2025[1]. Being on the Entity List does not mean all trade is forbidden. Broadly speaking it means American companies and individuals are not allowed sell them goods and services, but they are still allowed to buy from them and pay them.
AFAIK the Chinese AI companies barely depend on US goods and services, except for nVidia GPUs which were export restricted anyway, so it doesn't seem to be very consequential (see Z.ai). For the RAM maker CXMT it could be a lot more problematic though.
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What's the publicly stated/marketing reason for capitalist America to put companies on the Entity List? Genuinely asking. Because to me it screams 'we were only for the free market until there was no competition'
that is open to debate. Any commercial activity with a sanctioned entity has a pretty broad interpretation. Companies might not want to take the chance even if they are "still allowed".
> except for nVidia GPUs which were export restricted anyway,
those export restrictions are a joke. when they were introduced, there was a sudden spike in NVIDIA GPU exports to surrounding Asian countries. and the US government knows this
CXMT memory maker will not be banned, because US AI labs are salivating at the idea of more RAM supply, and are lobbying hard to prevent restrictions
How does that even work? If Z.ai wants to buy lets say GPUs for AI training, what's stopping them from going to a local reseller? Its not even circumventing the rules, its the natural thing to do.
For that matter, does (only) NVIDIA make datacenter cards? When I buy a gaming card, I dont buy from NVIDIA, I buy from an integrator, like Gigabyte, who work with a company like Foxconn to make the cards.