China’s Military and Government Acquire Nvidia Chips Despite US Ban: Reuters

Chinese military bodies, state-run artificial intelligence research institutes, and universities have over the past year purchased small batches of Nvidia semiconductors banned by the U.S. from export to China, a Reuters review of tender documents show.

The sales by largely unknown Chinese suppliers highlight the difficulties Washington faces, despite its bans, in completely cutting off China’s access to advanced U.S. chips that could fuel breakthroughs in AI and sophisticated computers for its military.

Buying or selling high-end U.S. chips is not illegal in China and the publicly available tender documents show dozens of Chinese entities have bought and taken receipt of Nvidia semiconductors since restrictions were imposed.

These include its A100 and the more powerful H100 chip—whose exports to China and Hong Kong were banned in September 2022—as well as the slower A800 and H800 chips Nvidia then developed for the Chinese market but which were also banned last October.

The graphic processing units—a type of chip—that are built by Nvidia are widely seen as far superior to rival products for AI work as they can more efficiently process huge amounts of data needed for machine-learning tasks.

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