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Investing.com - Chinese buyers are ordering Nvidia’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) cutting-edge artificial intelligence semiconductors, evading U.S. chip export rules, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Vendors in the country are selling computer systems with Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell chips already installed by routing them through third-party entities in nearby countries, the WSJ reported.
Some sellers are even saying they can deliver these items to buyers within six weeks, the paper noted.
In one instance, a vendor in the major tech innovation hub of Shenzhen received an order for over a dozen Blackwell servers from a customer in Shanghai, the WSJ said, citing a contract that included a roughly $3 million deposit into an escrow account.
Other resellers have said they are using companies registered outside of China to buy Nvidia servers from firms in countries like Taiwan, Malaysia and Vietnam, the WSJ said. Many of these firms are existing Nvidia customers and have bought products from the tech giant for their own use. They then resell a portion of these items to China, the WSJ said.
Such transactions are happening despite strict U.S. regulations designed to curb China’s access to state-of-the-art processors that are used to train and develop AI models, the WSJ said.
Still, China has been prioritizing building up its AI capabilities, with the emergence of a low-cost AI model from local start-up DeepSeek earlier this year spurring on expenditures by domestic companies on the technology, the WSJ said.
Blackwell servers containing eight AI chips may sell for over $600,000 in China, a premium above global prices, it added. Nvidia, which logged $11 billion in sales in its quarter ended in January, first began shipping Blackwell in December. The offering now makes up roughly 30% of Nvidia’s total revenue.