US export control rules have long prevented a certain number of Chinese companies and related structures from purchasing advanced equipment of American origin, but in China, not only intermediary firms are multiplying like mushrooms after rain, but also clones of companies subject to sanctions, which American regulators simply cannot keep up with. calculate.
Image source: NVIDIA
As Tom’s Hardware notes, citing a publication in The New York Times, deliveries of advanced computing accelerators to China, formally controlled by the US authorities, in fact allow local customers to purchase such products in quantities ranging from several hundred pieces to volumes equivalent to more than $100 million. If you go through the chain supplies from start to finish, you can find that among the buyers there are Chinese organizations that are included in the conditional “black list” in the United States. The problem is that such an analysis of the logistics of each batch of goods requires a huge investment of not only time, but also money. In practice, no one does such detailed tracking, which is what Chinese buyers take advantage of.
An interesting example is the reaction of representatives of the Chinese server equipment manufacturer Sugon to American sanctions, which deprived the company of the opportunity to directly purchase Nvidia computing accelerators. A group of Sugon executives simply founded a new company with the provocative name Nettrix, and within six months it became one of the largest suppliers of AI servers in China. It must be said that the new company can now purchase Western equipment available for purchase through official channels completely legally. In such cases, American regulators simply do not have time to update the list of companies subject to restrictions.