The US export ban is forcing the Chinese to procure the banned Nvidia AI GPUs for double the price in their country, mostly from neighbouring countries.
These cards are essential for China, as the country is competing aggressively in the Generative AI field, led by Western companies. Though some Chinese companies can get this restricted hardware anyway, they’re still available in limited quantities.
Buying GPUs on the Black Market
As the trade war between the US and China continues to escalate, the demand for AI GPUs in the South Asian country is going wildly high. A Reuters report states that the Chinese are buying Nvidia’s latest AI GPUs – A100 and H100 for almost double the price on the black markets.
This results from an export ban from the US government, prohibiting local firms from selling advanced hardware to China and Russia to limit their technological growth. Yet, the Chinese can get them from the neighbouring countries in small batches for higher prices.
One example is Ivan Lau, co-founder of Hong Kong’s Pantheon Lab, who said he got a couple of sellers trading the A100 chips for HK$150,000($19,150) per card. “They told us straight up that there will be no warranty or support“, he noted. Nvidia’s A100 and H100 cards are so crucial for the development of AI applications and extensive language models(LLMs) like OpenAI’s GPT.
And with China strongly competing against the US on all fronts, it’s letting it’s citizens procure the cards from India, Taiwan or Singapore, through black markets, for reportedly $20,000 a piece in Shenzhen! Well, they’re still limited, though, as they can’t procure them in bulk – barring them from making and training GPT-like LLMs.
Though Nvidia said it’d take immediate and strict action against anyone who violates their buyer policy – by reselling their goods to prohibited countries, it’s almost impossible for the company to track and disrupt this network.
Other Trending News:- News
