> And I'm almost certain nothing will happen

What realistically could happen? Nvidia is already prohibited from selling their GPUs to China, I guess if you wanted it to really stop, you'd need to prohibit Nvidia from selling GPUs in any other country but the US, and require some sort of government controlled license to be able to buy it inside the US. Neither of which sound like realistic options.

So what could anyone really do, to "solve" this "problem"?

License leases, this is what they can do.

You log into the Nvidia Enterprise Portal and download a license file that is temporary valid (e.g. 7 days) and bound to the specific serial numbers.

You transfer that file to your local license (DLS) server.

It does not need to be permanently connected to the internet, but it needs to be refreshed periodically.

Your local server now holds the tickets that the GPUs need to use to run (obviously checked by the GPU itself, not on a driver-level, though driver could be a first step).

https://docs.nvidia.com/license-system/dls/index.html

If an account is suspected of violation, they get suspended and need to pass the KYC again.

It's not perfect (as violators can use shell companies), but it is relatively elegant. In case of shell companies, they can get caught one day or another.

Regular users or those who don’t need air-gapped network can just stay online and the lease automatically renew in the background. Friction-less.

Added benefit: nobody is going to try to steal your cards

Minus: enshittification of the world in the name of politics, and Nvidia will lose sales, and backfire at the US economy

I hope they don't plan it

didn't the US just allow H200s to China last few days btw