Overview

• The Financial Times found that at least $1 billion of Nvidia’s banned AI processors, including B200, H100 and H200 chips, entered China in the three months after April’s export restrictions took effect.
• Chinese distributors in Guangdong, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces funneled restricted Nvidia chips through hubs in Thailand and Malaysia to circumvent US export controls.
• Nvidia said it has “no evidence of any AI chip diversion” and argued that bootleg datacenters built with smuggled products are unviable without official support and service.
• A growing repair industry in China now services Nvidia’s banned GPUs, with Shenzhen firms fixing hundreds of H100s and A100s monthly in makeshift data-center simulations.
• The US Commerce Department is considering extending export controls to additional Southeast Asian countries as early as September to curb illicit chip flows.