[em500]

Noteworthy 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.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z.ai

[torginus]

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.

[AMDAnon]

There are compliance requirements for datacenter cards subject to export control. GPU companies are expected to know who the end-user is and avoid shipping to resellers/freight forwarders with uncertain destinations.

BIS/Commerce Department can audit and fine your company if you don't comply.

[jacobgkau]

The GamersNexus documentary (https://youtu.be/1H3xQaf7BFI) on the semi-underground GPU trade in China, while a little amateurish in terms of depth and general atmosphere, is an interesting watch and may answer some of your questions.

Basically, those export controls make GPUs more expensive for affected parties in China, but don't effectively stop them from being acquired or used over there.

[Matl]

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'

[jameslk]

The common thread here is that it is China. Before the 2010s and earlier, the US wasn't so concerned about China, but ever since then, China has been a big US concern for it being a technology and military rival

e.g. the "Investigative Report on the U.S. National Security Issues Posed by Chinese Telecommunications Companies Huawei and ZTE" report from 2012:

https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rm226yb7473/Huawei-ZT...

From that point forward, that concern has only grown

[_heimdall]

Free markets generally only make sense when at the same scope of the ruling government. When country A can manipulate markets in ways that country B can't or won't, eventually country B will attempt to make trade rules that level the playing field.

Its also worth noting we don't really have free markets in the US anyway.

[Matl]

"First published in 1997 to inform the public on entities involved in disseminating weapons of mass destruction, the list has since expanded to include entities that engaged in "activities sanctioned by the State Department and activities contrary to U.S. national security and/or foreign policy interests"

So RAM chip makers when there's a RAM shortage must be 'contrary to U.S. national security and/or foreign policy interests' i.e. the US government is trying to squeeze its citizens on RAM prices.

Nice.

[Izkata]

Other way around according to what GGP quoted, this would get RAM into the US but not out, reducing prices.

[mapontosevenths]

> Other way around according to what GGP quoted, this would get RAM into the US but not out, reducing prices.

Only in a world where the other party has no agency. In real life the other party raises prices on their exports to compensate for the supply chain disruption and they still get the items.

Ultimately the consumer pays more, the extra goes the government, and the net impact is just obfuscated taxation and a reduction in both supply and demand that's bad for the economy and other living things.

[dragonwriter]

> What's the publicly stated/marketing reason for capitalist America to put companies on the Entity List?

“Capitalism” is (as a result of propaganda by its defenders after it was named and accurately described by its socialist critics) often mistaken for a dedication to free trade, but capitalism is a regime characterized first and foremost by society being organized around the interests of the capital-holding class, the first of which is the preservation of the situation in which society is organized around the interests of that class. The reasons companies are put on the Entity List is because they are broadly seen as a threat (long-term or immediate) to the continuation of that regime. That’s what the “foreign policy and national security interests” that form the official basis of the Entity List ultimately, generally, boil down to, in one way or another.

(They don’t always boil down to that, because why the US is basically a capitalist system, it is not purely one, and even in a more pure capitalist regime, individual influential decision-makers may have other interests that they act on besides the implementation and preservation of capitalism that end up getting reflected in policy.)

[mthoms]

It’s the same logic behind the Trump tariff regime: “We love capitalism and free markets, except when we’re losing at it”.

[tmaly]

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".

[dist-epoch]

> 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

[alephnerd]

And those who enabled it (the leadership team at SuperMicro) were charged by the US [0] and Taiwan [1]

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/us-charges-three-people-with-c...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/taiwan-investigates...

[overfeed]

> And those who enabled it

There is no single "it", the Singapore loophole is well known, and nothing has been done about it. Except by China, once , when it blocked the sale of Manus to Meta, even though on paper, Manus is a Singaporean enterprise.