Poland fumes over US block on AI chips
100 comments
·January 21, 2025perihelions
lvoudour
It seems it's more complex than that. Greece and Portugal are also getting the Polish treatment (Tier2), so are Iceland, Switzerland and Israel
blackeyeblitzar
There might be things the US knows that maybe even the Polish government doesn’t - for example maybe there are Polish firms that have business ties to China and have funneled chips or other tech there previously. Or maybe there are implications based on local laws. I’m speculating, but I think there are possibilities that explain the split.
belter
Now you have to explain the limitations they also included on Portugal (but not on Spain). Portugal being one of the most pro USA European countries and a NATO founding member.
perihelions
Or Lithuania, arguably[0] the most anti-China member of NATO. *That's* the NATO ally (!) they chose to blacklist, with their anti-China chip export ban?
[0] https://apnews.com/article/business-china-beijing-global-tra... ("EU launches WTO action against China over Lithuania dispute")
suraci
You're right, stay vigilant, Who knows how many CCPs are still hiding around us? it's necessary to watch out for your allies.
Scenes like these are happening... and you could be next
jajko
Jeez what a paranoid sad viewpoint. With that approach, you will never find proper friends, lose all current ones, and attract biggest scum around. Talking about states of course.
US alone is meaningless, powerless and insignificant and needs friends and peers more desperately than ever, containing less than 5% of the world population. Sure you can go North Korea style but why lose everything that was gained so hard.
ozim
Well US needs our AI experts to work in US and for US not in PL. Wojciech Zaremba or Piotr Sankowski and others.
high_na_euv
Both need eachother.
Poland couldnt enable them, I guess
rich_sasha
I suppose they want to constrain total supply, so need sheer numbers of countries for whom they can cut it. I guess from a purely utilitarian PoV, it's inevitable that a fraction of sold chips will end up in China et al. So there may be no suspicion of foul play.
But, f*k me, the optics are terrible.
pydry
no, the US is just washing its hands of europe/ukraine the same way it washed its hands of Afghanistan.
The EU will probably be locked out of the upcoming US negotiations with Russia the same way the Afghan government was locked out of American negotiations with the Taliban in Doha.
Temporary_31337
I don’t think that was thought through at all, just some stupid political posturing. First of all lots of chips are in data centres already. Google has one in Poland. There’s freedom of movement and business across EU so any Polish citizen can set up company in Germany buy the chips and legally drive them over the border - there’s no border checks in Schengen area- bit like US interstate borders.
jdietrich
>any Polish citizen can set up company in Germany buy the chips and legally drive them over the border
They wouldn't be breaking EU law in doing so, but whoever supplied this Polish citizen would be breaching the terms of their US export license or license exception. Germany has been granted a license exception specifically because the BIS trusts them to prevent this from happening.
A company in Poland is not prevented from importing advanced GPUs, but they need to apply for either a license or a Validated End-User Authorization. Likewise, Poland could apply to be recognised as an eligible destination country on the same terms as Germany if they can provide written assurances to the US government that they have taken adequate steps to prevent diversion.
I'm not a fan of these rules, but I think they're being misrepresented.
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-00636.pdf
tpm
> whoever supplied this Polish citizen would be breaching the terms of their US export license or license exception
And whoever (if that's an entity trading in the EU) refuses to supply a Polish citizen on the basis of his nationality is most probably breaking the rules of the Common Market. So if nobody wants to break any laws, this ultimately ends with EU buying GPUs from China.
qwytw
Are all companies in the EU legally required to do business with any company in any EU country whether they want to or not? Seems hard to believe...
Larrikin
It's highly illegal in the US to setup a business in NY (say a bodega), drive to a state with cheap cigarettes like VA, and transport those cigarettes over state lines for sale in NY.
melchizedek6809
That particular border actually does get controlled these days, got held up at the German-Polish border just a week or so ago:
https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/EN/202...
But of course your overall point stands
patrickmcnamara
They're just checking for illegal immigration though, right? Not like they'll care about GPUs going across the border.
diggan
> there’s no border checks in Schengen area
This is no longer true, they've done a "Temporary Reintroduction of Border Control", and bunch of countries have implemented more control as of late. https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-...
tpm
I'm passing quite often one of these borders supposedly with controls and the cars are waved through by the officers. Even better, if you are passing the border on foot or on a bike, there are no officers to be seen at all. So the controls are nominally reintroduced to score some political points, most probably.
diggan
Yeah, this been my experience as well (in South/West Schengen, by car). I've seen spot checks more regularly though, compared to some years ago when there was literally nothing.
jajko
Switzerland is in Schengen and they kept border checks all the time, also strict limits on goods transferred etc.
diggan
> Switzerland is in Schengen and they kept border checks all the time
Not sure "all the time" is accurate. Two years ago I drove a car through Switzerland, entering from the South border and leaving at the North border (and ~3 weeks later, the opposite way), there was no border checks at all. The only control we encountered when traveling from Spain to Sweden (and vice-versa) by car was the quick checks at the German<>Denmark ferry border.
tommiegannert
Given they're not part of the EU, and you have to pay import duties and VAT, that makes more sense than Poland/Germany.
mytailorisrich
Schengen applies to people. However, Switzerland is not in the EU and, crucially, not in the EU Customs Union so there are import limitations.
They do not check extra hard, though... It's been a number of years but they used to wave cars through or even have border/customs checkpoints closed depending on their 'mood'...
izacus
Of course actually seeing those border checks is another thing entirely ;)
flir
Do you even need to drive them over the border? Plug them in in Germany, go use them from a laptop in Poland.
(I don't get export controls on cloud hardware. Unless it's protectionism designed to lock countries with cheap energy prices out of the market, of course. I could see that rationale).
benterix
That was actually my first though. Why even bother moving them physically?
Etheryte
Politics aside, I wonder how you would technically implement something like that. For most practical intents and purposes, goods and services flow freely inside the EU. If your company has a legal body in say both Spain and Poland, can it procure the chips? Once it has the chips, it can simply ship them to Poland, no questions asked. What if a Spanish company buys chips, then a Polish company acquires them? Etc, I don't really see what a feasible implementation of this idea would look like.
netdevphoenix
Vendors will likely be required to state purpose and usage for the chips and the hips would probably have some kind of id or batch number so if at some point your chip ends up somewhere it's not supposed to you lose your license and maybe your whole country relevant enforcement authority reviews your activities and punishes you further. Rogue agents will likely be costly to their home countries so countries will have an incentive to prevent rule breaking.
It's like stealing an apple from a shop, sure you can do it a few times but eventually you will be arrested.
ryao
The AI block was cancelled:
https://www.barrons.com/articles/nvidia-stock-trump-revokes-...
I have no idea why the original article was even published.
agilob
I heard from Polish news that Spanish government formed a dedicated team to negotiate with US and they succeed, yet Polish government wasn't interested in the talks at all despite being invited to.
skirge
being efficient is not a strongest side of any polish politician
kragen
I wonder if the PRC will allow Poland to buy “AI chips” (TPUs?) from them once SMIC catches up a bit more. If not Poland, what about Turkey, South Africa, India, Switzerland, Israel, and Brazil? The US policy could easily backfire.
themgt
You can find the WH fact sheet in web archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250118190105/https://www.white...
The actual federal register rule is here:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/15/2025-00...
Havoc
Does seem strange given that Poland is probably stepping up more than anyone else on Defence. Ie exactly what us wanted
H8crilA
International politics aside, what is this ban exactly about? I doubt that all GPUs or all ASICs will be banned to those countries. Is there some regulatory agency that defines what's an (advanced) AI chip? Do they go by transistor count, or by the amount of fast RAM?
qwytw
Exports are obviously not banned... They added a cap and some additional restrictions on Poland and similar countries though
Specifically:
> Those on the tier two list will see the number of AI chips - called graphics processing units (GPUs) - capped at 50,000 unless they have a special license.
null
netdevphoenix
Why has the US AI factsheet disappear from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
jurmous
Something about the event of yesterday after which the whole site was replaced.
netdevphoenix
Is that a normal thing? Does the whole site gets replaced after a new president starts serving?
mainecoder
here you go:https://archive.is/9QwJ0
rob74
> It therefore came as a shock when Warsaw was the most notable European Union victim of the decision by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden last week to cap coveted AI chip exports.
The link to the decision (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...) already ends in a 404 error (with an unmistakably Trump-like text "Page not found - go home"). But maybe Poland can set its hopes on Trump willing to overturn all of his predecessor's decisions, even though the current Polish government is probably not to his liking?
Gravityloss
There's server industry in Poland too. Ie many servers provided by big mainstream vendors, located now in data centers around the world, were actually assembled in Poland.
skirge
Dell factory in Łódź (Lodz) for example
US export controls splitting the EU along Iron Curtain boundaries is a philosophical repudiation of America's top diplomatic victories of the 20th century. Disturbing to see the US denying its alliance with individual members—to me, it's reminiscent of #47's comments denying US' responsibility towards Montenegro, except this one's on the other guy, the supposedly diplomatic one, the supposed champion of alliances in a US-led unipolar free world.
I think it must be a double shock to EU politics to see both American sides' contempt for the unity/solidarity of the EU.