Nvidia revealed the new rules in a regulatory filing earlier this week. A person familiar with the matter confirmed AMD was also affected.

The new rules would require Nvidia to seek licenses before selling its flagship chips to some Middle Eastern countries, the filing said. Neither Nvidia nor AMD have disclosed whether they have applied for such licenses and whether they have been approved or denied.

Both companies think this won't have the slightest impact on their bottom line.

The Commerce Department declined to comment on whether it had imposed new requirements on specific US companies. Neither Nvidia nor AMD have said much more.

US officials usually impose export controls for national security reasons. A similar move announced last year signalled an escalation of the US crackdown on China's technological capabilities. Still, it was not immediately clear what risks were posed by exports to the Middle East.

Another issue is that the chips are datacentre chips so if the Middle Eastern country can’t get their paws on them they can rent time on AWS compute.