U.S. considering Nvidia chip exports to Saudi Arabia- report

The US government is close to allowing Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to export its AI chips to Saudi Arabia, news publication Semafor reported citing unnamed sources at Saudi Arabia’s AI summit, Gain, held in Riyadh.

The Gain summit, running from September 10 to 12, saw representatives from AI players Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Groq speak at the event.

Saudi Arabia is working close to meet the security requirements of the U.S. after shipments of Nvidia’s (NVDA) chips were limited earlier in 2024 over the country’s ties with China.

In May, U.S. officials reportedly slowed licenses to chipmakers to send large-scale amounts of AI accelerators to the Middle East, amid a national security review of AI development in the region.

The U.S. has been looking to curtail China’s access to AI chips or chipmaking tools, including working with allies Japan and the Netherlands. Semafor’s report suggests Saudi Arabia may be switching towards the U.S. as well, with this year’s Gain summit seeing noticeably fewer attendees from China.

The Saudi government is reportedly moving away from Chinese firms but wants to still keep an avenue open to the country if the U.S. holds on to its cautious stance against the Middle Eastern nation.

Saudi Arabia is looking to receive Nvidia’s most advanced H200 chips to develop its own large-scale AI models.