China continues to purchase modern Nvidia chips bypassing sanctions – Kommersant

China continued to receive Nvidia memory chips from the US last year despite sanctions. This is reported by Reuters, referring to the tender documentation. The buyers included leading Chinese universities, including two institutions sanctioned by the US, the Harbin Institute of Technology and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. American authorities accuse these scientific institutions of having ties with the armed forces and acting against US national interests.

According to Reuters, the Harbin Institute of Technology purchased six A100 chips last May, and the University of Electronic Science and Technology purchased one such chip. In addition, according to tender documents released last month, Tsinghua University purchased two H100 chips, and a laboratory run by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology purchased another. In total, the news agency discovered more than 100 tenders for the purchase of A100 chips and dozens more for the purchase of A800 chips.

US sanctions prohibit supply of modern chips to China that can be used for the development of AI and dual-use technologies. These include models A100 and H100. Moreover, in October the US limited sale of chips that the American company Nvidia developed specifically for export to China. The restriction affected the A800 and H800 lines.

In China itself, the purchase of American chips is not prohibited. Moreover, in no case, according to the documents, did neither Nvidia nor its official retailers act as suppliers of microchips directly to the PRC. Chinese suppliers have previously said they are either buying up excess chip inventory that hits the market during Nvidia’s bulk shipments to U.S. companies, or importing chips through companies registered in India, Taiwan and Singapore.

Last November reportedthat Nvidia and Intel will soon supply China with their new microchips designed specifically for this country. At the same time, Nvidia will release three new models for the country based on the flagship H100 model.

Kommersant wrote in a publication about what Joe Biden and Xi Jinping discussed at the summit in San Francisco “The leaders of the United States and China came together and went their separate ways”.

Kirill Sarkhanyants