> What if the gov tolerated gpu exports on purpose?

Given the track record of this administration, they were probably paid to tolerate said exports.

Why on earth would that be suppressing motivation to develop sovereignty? The whole thing makes developing sovereignty an existential priority. When one critical part of your AI technology stack is subject to whims of your adversary, it's not really fully your AI technology stack. Today they turn the tap partially on, but only unofficially, tomorrow they'll shut it off. Time to buy your own tap.

Yup, I think the same applies to traffic of arms regulations.. Private firms sell to countries they are 'allowed' to, passing it between organisations in a chain until they get to the original customer they couldn't sell to directly.. Cuts are taken along the way, and people making money look the other way..

When Xi visited, Trump offered to sell him US made weapons.

What's the chance that these GPUs got to China without Trump getting a cut somehow?

Pretty much zero. Trump sat on knowledge of the affair for an entire year. That's extremely guilty behavior, he was either extorting Huang or covering g for him.

The whole thing is the most corrupt thing we have ever seen at the presidential level.