Nvidia AI chips worth $1B smuggled to China after Trump export controls

At least $1 billion worth of Nvidia’s advanced artificial intelligence processors were shipped to China in the three months after Donald Trump tightened chip export controls, exposing the limits of Washington’s efforts to restrain Beijing’s high-tech ambitions.

A Financial Times analysis of dozens of sales contracts, company filings, and multiple people with direct knowledge of the deals reveals that Nvidia’s B200 has become the most sought-after—and widely available—chip in a rampant Chinese black market for American semiconductors.

The processor is widely used by US powerhouses such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta to train their latest AI systems, but banned for sale to China.

In May, multiple Chinese distributors started selling B200s to suppliers of data centers that serve Chinese AI groups, according to documents reviewed by the FT. This was shortly after the Trump administration moved to prevent sales of the H20—a less-powerful Nvidia chip tailored to comply with Joe Biden-era curbs.

It is legal to receive and sell restricted Nvidia chips in China, as long as relevant border tariffs are paid, according to lawyers familiar with the rules. Entities selling and sending them to China would be violating US regulations, however.

Last week, Nvidia chief Jensen Huang announced that the Trump administration would begin to allow the selling of its China-specific H20 chip once more.

In the three months beforehand, Chinese distributors from Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Anhui provinces sold Nvidia’s B200s, as well as other restricted processors such as the H100 and H200.

According to contracts reviewed by the FT and people with knowledge of the transactions, the total sales during this period are estimated to be more than $1 billion.

Nvidia has long insisted there is “no evidence of any AI chip diversion”. There is no evidence that the company is involved in, or has knowledge of, its restricted products being sold to China.