Banned Nvidia AI chips double to $1.1M on China black market as US crackdown tightens supply

Smuggled Nvidia AI Servers Now Cost Over $1 Million in China

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Credit: Chung Sung-Jun via Getty Images) Nvidia's high-end DGX B300 AI server platform, which retails for around $400,000 in the US, is selling for over $1.1 million in China's AI server black market, according to the Financial Times. With the hardware banned from export to China, it's unclear how these systems are making their way there, but smuggling operations are not uncommon. Nvidia describes the DGX B300 as an "AI factory for AI reasoning," promising twice the performance of the DGX B200. It packs eight Blackwell Ultra GPUs, Intel Xeon 6776P CPUs, and over 2TB of GPU memory. That all adds up to a hefty price tag, but when you factor in the associated costs and risks of smuggling into China, there's an even higher premium to pay. FT's sources claim that until recently, the DGX B300 was available for 4 million yuan, or around $589,000, but they are now being sold for 8 million yuan, or around $1.1 million. Other banned Nvidia hardware is also priced much higher than its price at launch. RTX 6000 Pro graphics cards -- the full-fat version of the RTX 5090, unlocked for professional workloads -- are now being sold for around $18,000 apiece, or 2.5x the price they were going for at the start of the year. This is all down to increasingly tight controls on access to cutting-edge chips and AI models in China. Although the US has opened sales of older H200 Hopper GPUs, the newer Blackwell graphics platforms remain subject to additional restrictions. The Trump administration has also been trying to close loopholes for smuggled systems, and Nvidia has made it clear that any systems found operating in unauthorized territories would not receive official support or service. That doesn't appear to stop Chinese buyers and sellers, though. They're just being purchased and sold at a serious markup. There's never enough, though, and FT reports that Chinese companies are also buying up older A100 systems, and even gaming graphics cards to repurpose for AI workloads. This comes despite China pushing domestic companies to use local chip suppliers where possible, even mandating that AI firms use at least 50% domestically produced inferencing chips. That's led to the explosive growth of companies like Huawei and Cambricon Technologies. They aren't necessarily able to compete directly with Nvidia, but they have shown impressive performance and efficiency leaps in recent years, making them a useful alternative when Nvidia hardware isn't available.

China black market Nvidia prices rocket in wake of smuggling crackdown and customs freeze -- five-year-old A100 servers triple in price, now fetching up to $82,000

Buyers are repurposing gaming GPUs and bidding up older Ampere hardware. Chinese companies are paying as much as 600,000 Chinese Yuan ($82,000) for servers built around Nvidia's five-year-old A100 accelerator and modifying gaming GPUs to run AI workloads, as a U.S. smuggling crackdown and a Chinese customs freeze on legally approved chips choke off every other supply route at once, according to the Financial Times. The price of an A100 server has roughly tripled since late last year, while Nvidia's flagship DGX B300 system has doubled to more than 8 million ($1.1 million) on the black market over the past six months. Servers built on the A100, a data-center GPU Nvidia launched in 2020, have climbed from about 200,000 Chinese Yuan ($22,300) to as much as 600,000 ($67,000) since late last year, the FT reported, citing chip traders. Demand has also pulled in gaming processors that can be modified to run inference. Nvidia's restricted Blackwell hardware sits at the top of the same market: the RTX 6000 Pro workstation card has risen from roughly 50,000 Chinese Yuan ($5,580) at the start of the year to as much as 130,000 ($14,500), and the DGX B300, which retails in the U.S. for nearly $400,000, now trades above $1.1 million. Renting is no cheaper, with an FT survey finding that GPU rates inside China now match or exceed U.S. prices, reversing the discount that the abundant smuggled supply once provided. Washington tightened enforcement at the end of last year, and in March, a Supermicro co-founder was charged over an alleged $2.5 billion scheme to route Nvidia AI servers to Chinese buyers. Authorities in Taiwan and Malaysia subsequently opened their own smuggling investigations, drying up the re-export routes traders had relied on. Building data centers from smuggled chips is a "dead-end," Nvidia told the outlet, adding that it provides no support or repairs for restricted products. Beijing itself closed legal channels from the other side. After the Trump administration approved H200 exports to China, Chinese customs were instructed to block the chips at the border, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later confirmed that Nvidia hadn't sold a single H200 to a Chinese company months later. Both moves push buyers toward the same destination: Huawei, which has positioned its Ascend 950PR, launched in March, as the inference chip of choice for domestic firms. It's understood that the 950PR is currently undergoing testing at large data center clients in China, but output is still limited, and its native CANN software stack substantially trails Nvidia's CUDA, so domestic supply can't yet absorb the demand the import freeze has redirected. Rising memory prices are only compounding all this, with one trader saying that moving away from Nvidia hardware had become harder as component costs climbed, a knock-on from the DRAM and HBM shortage now working through every tier of the AI hardware stack. Until Huawei scales the 950PR, which will take some time, or Beijing greenlights H200 imports, which is highly unlikely, prices for the remaining A100 inventory in China will continue to rise. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

China Fails To Stop Tech Firms From Using NVIDIA Chips, As Banned DGX & RTX "Blackwell" GPUs Hit 2x Price on Black Market

China has failed tremendously in stopping its tech firms from using banned NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs that are being sold on the black market for double the price. The US Banned NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs Because They Were Too Cutting Edge, & China Banned Them To Focus On Domestic Solutions, But Strong Demand From Tech Firms See Doubling of Prices In Black Market The NVIDIA Blackwell GPU family has been entirely banned in China for AI workloads. The US Government banned them because Blackwell was a bit too cutting-edge, even limiting sales of the gamer-oriented RTX 5090 and relaunching a cut-down variant called the 5090 D V2, which even the Chinese don't want. At the same time, the Chinese Government initiated a domestic-first policy, forcing its AI and tech firms to use domestically produced AI chips from the likes of Huawei. This led to various attempts to smuggle these AI-powerhouses into China through offshore routes. There have been attempts to catch the smugglers, and many have been arrested. Despite all of this, NVIDIA's banned GPUs remain in strong demand within China. As per Financial Times, NVIDIA's Blackwell DGX and RTX GPUs are seeing massive demand, which has led black market sellers to double the prices. As per the report, the NVIDIA DGX B300 platform, which houses eight DGX B300 GPUs and Intel Xeon chips with an astonishing 2.1 TB of GPU memory, is being sold for 8 million RMB, roughly $1.1m. That's up from its original price of 4 million RMB. The US pricing for the same system is $400,000. Nvidia's AI chips have more than doubled in price on China's black market as a US crackdown on illicit exports collides with strong demand from Chinese companies. The price of the US tech giant's flagship DGX B300 server has soared to more than Rmb8mn ($1.1mn) over the past six months, up from Rmb4mn, according to FT interviews with multiple Chinese chip traders. The system, which contains eight Blackwell graphics processing units, typically retails in the US at about $400,000. via Financial Times Even more interesting is the demand for NVIDIA's RTX 6000 PRO Blackwell, which has also seen price hikes in US markets, hitting up to $13,250 US. The same graphics card with 96 GB memory is now being sold for 130,000 RMB (roughly $20,000 US). The massive 96 GB memory makes it an ideal platform for entry-level AI firms, which is something that the 5090 32 GB nor the 5090 D V2 24 GB have on offer. US lawmakers have placed a ban on exporting NVIDIA's Blackwell GPUs, such as GB200, GB300, RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, and RTX 5090 to China. While the US Government did relax some laws on older GPUs, such as the H200, these are far older and way less performant than Blackwell at the prices they are being sold. At the same time, they are still capable enough to tackle Huawei's latest and greatest offerings due to a finer software stack. Several traders said Chinese customers were increasingly buying a wider range of Nvidia hardware, including gaming processors that can be modified to run AI workloads and older generations of data centre equipment such as the A100 accelerator to work around the shortages. via Financial Times Even GPUs older than the Hopper generation, such as A100s and A200s, are seeing price bumps. With rampant demand, sellers are stating that they are running out of stock really quickly despite the prices reaching 600,000 RMB. However, with export regulations tightening & China's customs authorities paying close attention to every server and chip landing in the country borders, things are getting tight for the black market sellers and also tech companies that have relied on NVIDIA's ecosystem for their needs, with no other option than to opt for domestic solutions. Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.

Nvidia banned chips more than double in price on China black market- FT By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Nvidia's banned AI chips have more than doubled in price on China's black market over the past six months as US enforcement actions restrict illegal export channels, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. The price of Nvidia's DGX B300 server has climbed to more than 8 million yuan ($1.1 million) from 4 million yuan, according to interviews with multiple Chinese chip traders conducted by the Financial Times. The system contains eight Blackwell graphics processing units and typically sells in the US for about $400,000. The RTX 6000 Pro workstation chip, used by startups deploying large language models, has increased in cost from about 50,000 yuan at the start of the year to as much as 130,000 yuan, the FT reported. Both the RTX 6000 and DGX B300 are prohibited from export to China under Washington's chip controls. In March, a Supermicro co-founder was charged along with a Taiwan-based employee and a contractor with smuggling $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia AI servers to Chinese customers in the largest case by US law enforcement related to AI chip exports. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.