此前有报道称，知情人士透露美国政府正在考虑允许英伟达向沙特出口先进芯片。考虑到迄今为止美国严格的出口管制阻止了芯片出口到沙特，这一消息对沙特来说期望值很大。①So far, the strict chip export controls in the usa have prevented chip exports to countries such as Saudi Arabia; ②This week it was reported that the usa may relax the export restrictions on Saudi Arabia, which would enable Saudi Arabia to potentially obtain nvidia's H200 GPU; ③Senior officials from the Saudi Data and AI Authority stated that this progress is expected to occur next year.
On September 13th, Financial Associated Press reported that the Biden administration has implemented a series of restrictions on its chip exports over the past two years. In May of this year, these export restrictions expanded to countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Now, Saudi Arabia is optimistic that the United States will relax its chip export restrictions and expects to obtain some high-performance chips for the development and operation of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence models.
Abdulrahman Tariq Habib, a senior official of the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA), stated in an interview on Thursday, September 12th, that Saudi Arabia is expected to make such progress next year.
Earlier reports revealed that the usa government is considering allowing nvidia to export advanced chips to Saudi Arabia. Considering that the strict export controls in the usa have so far prevented chip exports to Saudi Arabia, this news is of great expectations for Saudi Arabia.
Boosting AI investment in Saudi Arabia
When asked about the possible timing, Abdulrahman Tariq Habib, Deputy CEO of SDAIA's Strategic Management Office, said at the Saudi Arabia International AI Summit GAIN in Riyadh, "I think it will happen within the next year."
Habib pointed out that obtaining these chips is "significant" for Saudi Arabia. nvidia's H200 GPU is the company's most powerful chip, currently used in OpenAI's GPT-4o.
He also stated, "This will ease the trade between Saudi Arabia and the usa, and will open many doors for Saudi Arabia's computing capacity construction. Over the past three years, we have made a lot of efforts in building capacity, personnel capacity, and data capacity. Therefore, we are cooperating with the international community to contribute to becoming one of the most active countries in data analysis."
Saudi Arabia is investing a large amount of funds in the field of ai and hopes to develop a strong ai ecosystem in the country. Data shows that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), with a scale of over 900 billion US dollars, will lead this investment.
SDAIA disclosed in a report that Saudi Arabia's goal is for ai to account for 12% of its GDP by 2030. These efforts are part of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's Vision 2030 initiative, which aims to modernize the Saudi economy, diversify its income, and reduce its dependence on oil.
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