How a Blacklisted Chinese Tech Giant Continues to Buy U.S. Chips
Paul Mozur is a global technology reporter for The Times, based in Taipei. Previously, he reported on the intersection of technology and politics in Asia from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul.
TL;DR
- Inspur, a Chinese technology company, was placed on the U.S. Entity List in March 2023, restricting its ability to do business with the United States.
- Aivres, a newly formed U.S. subsidiary of Inspur, has allegedly exploited loopholes in U.S. export laws to continue supplying computing power for China's AI industry.
- From April 2024 to February 2026, Aivres reportedly exported at least $5.6 billion worth of advanced technology from the U.S. to Southeast Asia, including significant amounts of Nvidia's Blackwell chips.
- This technology was shipped to data centers and tech companies in Southeast Asia that serve major Chinese tech firms like Alibaba and ByteDance.
- Another Chinese company, Maginfra, also appears to be involved, importing servers from a Malaysian electronics manufacturer and supplying them to universities and state-owned enterprises in China.
- U.S. officials are investigating Aivres and related companies for potentially smuggling restricted chips into China.
- Concerns exist that China could use advanced AI technology, potentially enabled by these chips, for hacking, surveillance, and military operations.