China acquired top-end Nvidia AI chips despite recent US ban- Reuters

Investing.com-- Chinese entities acquired Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips through resellers even after the U.S. last year widened a ban to restrict Chinese access to the technology, a Reuters report showed on Tuesday.

Reuters said that 10 Chinese entities with ties to the government had acquired advanced NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) AI chips which were embedded in server products made by Super Micro Computer Inc (NASDAQ:SMCI), Dell Technologies Inc (NYSE:DELL) and Taiwan’s Gigabyte Technology (TW:2376), citing a review of hundreds of tender documents. 

The chips were acquired between November 20 and February 28, after the U.S. had widened its export restrictions against China to include Nvidia’s AI chips. The new restrictions also prohibited resellers and third parties from selling the chips to Chinese entities. 

The Reuters report said it was unclear whether the chips were obtained by the resellers before the U.S. sanctions were enforced. It was also not immediately clear whether the report could attract more government scrutiny towards Nvidia and other tech suppliers to China. 

The U.S. government had cited concerns over China potentially using AI to support military applications, and also blocked the export of advanced chipmaking technology to the country.

While the restrictions were expected to curb China’s AI ambitions, the country’s internet giants- including Baidu Inc (NASDAQ:BIDU), JD.com Inc (NASDAQ:JD) and Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA)- have so far pushed forward with developing their own in-house AI models.

Chinese AI developers are also expected to switch over to locally-developed silicon- a scenario that benefit’s China’s chipmakers. But the caliber of their AI chip capabilities still remains to be seen, given that Nvidia is viewed as making the most advanced AI chips currently available in the market.