Nvidia pushes cloud customers to cut back on China business
Nvidia pushes cloud customers to cut back on China business
According to The Information and Financial Times, Nvidia has verbally advised some cloud customers (including neoclouds it has invested in) through sales representatives to reduce business from Chinese companies. The guidance is not mandatory and applies only to future contracts. Cloud customers are also being asked to disclose the identities of end users accessing chips, a move targeting remote cloud access channels not covered by US export controls. This follows allegations that Moonshot AI (developer of the Kimi chatbot) obtained advanced chips through overseas data centers.
Nvidia has told some cloud customers to take on less business from Chinese companies. The guidance is meant to push cloud providers, including Nvidia-backed neoclouds, toward a more diverse customer mix, The Information reports, citing three people familiar with the matter.
The directive isn't mandatory and applies to future contracts, not existing deals. Cloud customers are also being asked to disclose the identity of end users accessing the chips. According to the Financial Times, the instruction was communicated verbally through sales reps and regional teams.
The move targets a gap in U.S. export controls. The rules restrict chip shipments but generally don't cover remote access through cloud services. That lets Chinese AI developers tap advanced Nvidia chips by renting compute capacity at data centers abroad, without ever importing the hardware. U.S. authorities had been looking into Chinese AI companies accessing such chips through foreign data centers after allegations surfaced involving Moonshot AI, the developer behind the Kimi chatbot.
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Source: The Decoder · the-decoder.com