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Ten Chinese organizations have been able to obtain high-end chips from Nvidia. According to Reuters, the chips were in server products from Super Micro Computer, Dell, and Gigabyte. It is not clear whether these manufacturers have violated the American trade ban.
Reuters writes that it has been able to inspect around a hundred tenders from ten Chinese organizations. These tenders are said to have been placed between November 20, 2023, and February 28, 2024, and the documents show that server products were purchased that contained 'the most advanced' chips from Nvidia; chips that are suitable for AI applications. It is not clear exactly which chips are involved.
It is according to Reuters also not clear whether the American trade ban has been violated. Nvidia believes that the products in the tenders have been available in China for some time even before the US trade ban came into effect. That happened in 2022. According to the American company, the tenders are not an indication that rules have been violated. According to the tech company, it also concerns a 'negligible' number of chips.
The organizations that purchased the server products appear to be in the academic or scientific sector. These include Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Shandong Artificial Intelligence Institute, the Hubei Earthquake Administration, and the Universities of Shandong and Southwest. It also mentions a tech company with close ties to the government of China's Heilongjiang province, a Chinese government-run aerospace company, and a Chinese space agency. The US government has in September 2022 issued a trade ban that will prevent American companies such as AMD and Nvidia from exporting certain AI video cards to Chinese companies. According to the US government, the video cards could be used for military purposes. Tweakers wrote an extensive background article about the US trade ban.
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