Lol. Lmao.
In the funniest timeline, the US nationalizes Nvidia to delay China from making chips that work well with LLM's... by a year tops.
Link to original Fortune article the PC Gamer article pulled from, with this juicy relevant quote:
To do that, Raimondo said the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which manages export controls for the US, needs more funding from Congress.
“I have a $200 million budget. That’s like the cost of a few fighter jets. Come on,” she said. “If we’re serious, let’s go fund this operation like it needs to be funded.”
It's mostly path dependency. Semiconductor fabs are hideously expensive, you don't want to build a new one from scratch every generation, and this tech is new. China having not invested in extensive lithography machine manufacture before now means they can jump straight to the best tech.
That makes sense. Thanks!