So is this new that we're starting to see India as a way of accessing Nvidia chips for Russia? For example, I think the role of India has certainly come into focus for the West, so for Europe and the US, over the past couple years. They've been looking at various countries in Asia as transshipment hubs where these goods can essentially come from subsidiaries, vendors, distributors. These goods are primarily manufactured by Western companies and primarily US companies actually.
So the role of India - I guess the magnitude of the role of India as a hub - has certainly become much greater over the last few months. And why have they become such prominent actors in what is basically Russia trying to navigate barriers to accessing US tech?
There's a lot of reasons. I mean, partly when we talk to officials in the US and Europe about it, one thing they point to is that India has been buying a lot of Russian oil and Russia has a lot of Rupees at its disposal, so it's been using these Rupees to spend them essentially buying these goods out of India. So that's one big part driving this increase of this trade.
Another reason is also that Western officials - the US and Europe - have put a lot of effort into cracking down on other transshipment hubs. For example, earlier last year there was a big focus in the UAE, Turkey, Central Asia as areas where these goods were being sent to Russia.
I think a large part is the Rupees that Russia has to spend, but another one is that the West is cracking down on other areas where these goods were originally shipped from. Now these Nvidia chips are in Dell servers known as PowerEdge XC9680s, and Dell has said, look, since ever the sanctions came into place, they've stopped shipments to Russia.
But I'm interested in whether ultimately any of this is actually illegal. Well, technically it's not illegal in that India is not bound by US or European sanctions. In terms of the companies, I mean, it's true - a chip produced by a company in the US, I mean, its trade cycle, I guess, around the world is difficult to track because you have vendors, distributors, subsidiaries, all these other kind of companies or people that take part in the trade route.
So in terms of legal responsibility, it's almost impossible to place that on someone, certainly in the US who would be liable. But what could happen ex-post is that - which has been happening is that - the US could, for example, designate a lot of these companies, a lot of these intermediaries around the world who do participate in the trade of these goods.
So is this new that we're starting to see India as a way of accessing Nvidia chips for Russia? For example, I think the role of India has certainly come into focus for the West, so for Europe and the US, over the past couple years. They've been looking at various countries in Asia as transshipment hubs where these goods can essentially come from subsidiaries, vendors, distributors. These goods are primarily manufactured by Western companies and primarily US companies actually.
So the role of India - I guess the magnitude of the role of India as a hub - has certainly become much greater over the last few months. And why have they become such prominent actors in what is basically Russia trying to navigate barriers to accessing US tech?
There's a lot of reasons. I mean, partly when we talk to officials in the US and Europe about it, one thing they point to is that India has been buying a lot of Russian oil and Russia has a lot of Rupees at its disposal, so it's been using these Rupees to spend them essentially buying these goods out of India. So that's one big part driving this increase of this trade.
Another reason is also that Western officials - the US and Europe - have put a lot of effort into cracking down on other transshipment hubs. For example, earlier last year there was a big focus in the UAE, Turkey, Central Asia as areas where these goods were being sent to Russia.
I think a large part is the Rupees that Russia has to spend, but another one is that the West is cracking down on other areas where these goods were originally shipped from. Now these Nvidia chips are in Dell servers known as PowerEdge XC9680s, and Dell has said, look, since ever the sanctions came into place, they've stopped shipments to Russia.
But I'm interested in whether ultimately any of this is actually illegal. Well, technically it's not illegal in that India is not bound by US or European sanctions. In terms of the companies, I mean, it's true - a chip produced by a company in the US, I mean, its trade cycle, I guess, around the world is difficult to track because you have vendors, distributors, subsidiaries, all these other kind of companies or people that take part in the trade route.
So in terms of legal responsibility, it's almost impossible to place that on someone, certainly in the US who would be liable. But what could happen ex-post is that - which has been happening is that - the US could, for example, designate a lot of these companies, a lot of these intermediaries around the world who do participate in the trade of these goods.