Our government, having withdrawn the new diffusion rules, has now announced an agreement to sell massive numbers of highly advanced AI chips to UAE and Saudi Arabia (KSA). This post analyzes that deal and that decision.

It is possible, given sufficiently strong agreement details (which are not yet public and may not be finalized) and private unvoiced considerations, that this deal contains sufficient safeguards and justifications that, absent ability to fix other American policy failures, this decision is superior to the available alternatives. Perhaps these are good deals, with sufficiently strong security arrangements that will actually stick.

Perhaps UAE and KSA are more important markets and general partners than we realize, and the rest of the world really is unable to deploy capital and electrical power the way they can and there is nothing we can do to change this, and perhaps they have other points of [...]

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Outline:

(02:28) Choosing Sides In the War on Cancer

(03:23) The Central Points From Last Week

(07:34) Diffusion Controls Have Proven Vital

(10:27) It's a Huge Deal

(14:11) Do You Feel Secure?

(17:09) Why just count server racks fails

(18:29) Bottom-line probability estimate

(21:41) Semianalysis Defends the Deal

(28:09) Understanding the China Hawks

(35:35) Rhetoric Unbecoming

(37:18) Could China Have 'Done This Deal'?

(38:37) Tyler Cowen Asks Good Questions

(43:38) Saudi Arabia Also Made a Deal

(45:35) At Best A Second Best Solution

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First published:
May 19th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CRfuyWKxqYk4RvEZQ/america-makes-ai-chip-diffusion-deal-with-uae-and-ksa

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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