It's cheaper to rent NVIDIA's AI processing chips in China than in the US

The US government has restricted the export of high-performance semiconductors to China, and NVIDIA's AI processing chips are also subject to export controls. However, an abnormal situation has arisen in China where Chinese companies are able to rent servers equipped with NVIDIA AI processing chips at lower prices than American companies.

Nvidia's AI chips are cheaper to rent in China than US
https://www.ft.com/content/10aacfa3-e966-4b50-bbee-66e13560deb4

Nvidia's AI GPUs are cheaper to rent in China than in the US — $6 per hour for eight Nvidia A100 GPUs | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/nvidias-ai-gpus-are-cheaper-to-rent-in-china-than-in-the-us-dollar6-per-hour-for-eight-nvidia-a100-gpus

The US government has banned domestic companies from exporting high-performance semiconductors to China. However, Chinese companies are able to obtain high-performance semiconductors from the US via countries other than China, and NVIDIA's AI processing chips are also traded in large quantities within China.

How Chinese brokers circumvent U.S. regulations to bring AI research chips into China - GIGAZINE

According to information provided to the Financial Times by Chinese companies and customers, a small Chinese cloud provider is renting out a server equipped with eight NVIDIA A100 AI processing chips for about $6 (about 860 yen) per hour. In contrast, American providers are renting out the same configuration for about $10 (about 1,400 yen) per hour. In other words, when renting an A100-equipped server in China, it is cheaper to use a Chinese company than an American company.

Cloud providers affiliated with major Chinese companies such as Alibaba and ByteDance also rent out A100-equipped servers, but at prices ranging from $15 to $32 per hour, which is comparable to prices offered by American companies such as AWS. When asked why large companies are charging higher prices than smaller cloud providers, a Chinese startup founder explained, 'Small cloud providers don't care as much about compliance, but large companies have to care about compliance and are at a disadvantage because they can't use smuggled chips. Small providers don't care as much about compliance.'

The startup founder also said, 'There are more than 100,000 NVIDIA H100s in China.' According to a Chinese data center company, the price of a Supermicro server equipped with eight H100s rose to 3.2 million yuan (about 64 million yen) after export restrictions were tightened in October 2023, but has recently fallen to 2.5 million yuan (about 50 million yen).

In addition, in China, it is also widely used to access cloud services provided by Amazon and Microsoft through third-party companies.

Reports that Chinese companies are accessing American high-end GPUs through Amazon and Microsoft clouds - GIGAZINE