Countries Secure Scarce GPUs for Tech Advancement

As the most coveted chips are in limited supply, countries like the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia are expending significant financial and diplomatic resources to acquire enough GPUs for their domestic AI industries.

The Financial Times reported that Saudi Arabia had purchased at least 3,000 Nvidia H100 processors for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology to construct a new supercomputer.

According to the claim, the UAE has also invested in thousands of Nvidia chips through state-owned enterprises.

In these nations, governments are making substantial investments to advance AI research and foster innovation. And they should. At $40,000 each, H100s are not inexpensive.

However, they have become almost indispensable in advanced AI development. Few technology firms have the resources necessary to train large AI models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Due to their high processing capacity, the pricey Nvidia chips are highly sought-after for such tasks. And the GPU manufacturer has emerged as an essential participant in the current AI boom.

Nevertheless, OpenAI’s supercomputer comprises 10,000 A100s, an H100 predecessor.

To expand the United Kingdom’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, it was reported on Sunday, August 20, that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had allocated £100 million of public funds to purchase critical components from Nvidia, AMD, and Intel.

According to the report, the government is also in the final phases of acquiring GPUs from Nvidia.

Long-term, maintaining a technological advantage is significantly more complex and dynamic.

For countries like the United Kingdom, stockpiling GPUs is a transient solution to ongoing problems.

The entire GPU supply chain is constrained by the manufacturing capacity of Taiwanese chipmakers, which contributes to the high cost of graphics cards.

Commenting on tensions between Taiwan and China, the CEO of Nvidia stated that he feels “absolutely safe” relying so heavily on the chip giant’s supplies.

However, governments worldwide have identified the issue as a threat to national security.

And many believe that strengthening their domestic manufacturing capacity is essential to maintaining a secure supply of chips.

The British government, for instance, has published a national semiconductor strategy. A billion pounds will be committed to the country’s chip manufacturing sector over the next decade.

However, this figure is eclipsed by subsidies pledged by the EU and the United States, which have committed $52 billion and €43 billion, respectively, to support the semiconductor manufacturing industry.