Nvidia tells cloud clients to cut China exposure
The chipmaker has asked cloud computing clients to sell at least 51% of their services to companies outside China, five people familiar with the matter told FT.
Nvidia has told its data centre partners that most of their services must go to non-Chinese customers, a new rule that narrows China’s routes to advanced AI computing power, according to a Financial Times report. The rule applies to Nvidia’s clients globally, not just those in Asia, two of the sources said. In a statement, Nvidia said data centres and clouds built on American chips form the base on which American model and application makers compete worldwide, and that long-standing US policy supports building American infrastructure abroad.
The instructions were passed on verbally by Nvidia’s sales and regional teams rather than put in writing. It covers only future contracts, so existing leasing agreements stay as they are.
There were no such limits earlier.
A rack of B300 chips fetched nearly five times its international price in China last month, a person with direct knowledge of the deal told FT. Many Chinese tech groups rented advanced computing power from data centres outside the country, including for training AI models. Washington is now going after both the middlemen who feed the black market for Nvidia chips in China and these overseas leasing deals. Scarcity is already showing in prices. The B300 cannot be sold in China under US export controls and is used by American AI players such as Anthropic and OpenAI.