Conditional Chip Exports as Leverage

Governments can use narrowly targeted export approvals—allowing mid‑tier chips (H200) to 'approved' foreign customers under strict security conditions while blocking top‑end parts (Blackwell)—as a calibrated policy tool that balances domestic industry supply, allied advantage, and competitive pressure on rivals. Such conditional sales create a two‑tier compute regime (restricted frontier chips vs. permitted high‑end chips) that firms and states must navigate for procurement, compliance, and strategy. — This reframes export controls from blunt bans into a fine‑grained lever that redistributes capabilities, forces compliance standards on foreign buyers, and changes how nations and firms plan compute capacity and industrial policy.