Loophole: US rules allows Chinese firms to buy, rent NVIDIA AI GPUs, if they're used in the US

Well, well, well... it looks like Chinese companies that haven't been able to buy high-end AI GPUs like NVIDIA's AI stomping H100 AI GPU, are buying and renting AI GPUs but using them on US soil to skirt around US sanctions banning high-end AI chips from the country.

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The Information reports that ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok, has been renting out the best AI GPUs from NVIDIA from Oracle to use for AI. The news outlet reports from two anonymous sources that China Telecom has been making similar moves with other cloud computing providers.

Another source said that cloud companies Alibaba and Tencent have been reportedly talking with NVIDIA about setting up data centers in the United States, in order to get their hands on the best AI GPUs. The Information reports that two, unnamed (but smaller) cloud companies in the US had declined to rent NVIDIA's current-gen H100 AI GPUs because it "seemed to go against the spirit" of US sanctions.

The Information reached out to NVIDIA, with an NVIDIA spokesperson saying that it supports "new AI data centers in the US" but didn't tackle the issues at hand: allegations that they're talking with Chinese cloud companies, or that ByteDance were accessing their AI GPUs through Oracle.