Nvidia's Future in Saudi Arabia Hinges on US Approval, China Ties Hang in Balance

The U.S. government is nearing a decision on whether to approve Nvidia chip sales to Saudi Arabia, a deal that could accelerate AI projects in the region while impacting the kingdom’s relationship with China, which is under increased scrutiny.

US Evaluating Nvidia Chip Sales to Saudi Arabia

As reported by Semafor on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the situation (as cited by Reuters), the U.S. government is contemplating authorizing Nvidia to sell cutting-edge chips to Saudi Arabia.

This would enable the kingdom to train and operate its most advanced artificial intelligence models.

According to the report, sales of the chips were a major, albeit unofficial, subject at GAIN, the global AI summit in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia Aims to Meet US Security Standards

Several summit attendees, including employees of the Saudi Data and AI Authority, informed Semafor that the kingdom is striving to meet U.S. security standards in order to speed up the purchase of the chips.

The sale of artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries is now subject to a licencing requirement, as part of the new restrictions put in place last year by the Biden administration in an effort to limit China's access to these chips.

According to Yahoo Finance, the Saudi government is reportedly anticipating the shipping of Nvidia H200s, the company's most sophisticated CPUs. One of the first multimodal platforms to employ the H200 was OpenAI's GPT-4o, which could have natural-sounding conversations and respond to both text and images.

Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties with Chinese Firms but Leaves Door Open

Sources familiar with Saudi policy told the media that the kingdom has taken measures to reduce its ties to Chinese companies but has left the door open to China in the event that the US cuts off Saudi Arabia's access to cutting-edge U.S. semiconductors.

A representative from Nvidia chose not to address the story.

"Export control decisions regarding licenses, entity listings and any future policy actions are the subject of a rigorous interagency process including the Departments of Commerce, State, Defense and Energy," the US Department of Commerce stated, declining to comment on specifics.