Nvidia tells data center partners to “reduce the share of Chinese customers”

[Financial News]  Nvidia instructed its data center partners to reduce the share of services they provide to Chinese customers.
On the 3rd (local time), the Financial Times (FT) reported that Nvidia had begun requiring cloud computing customers to ensure that at least 51% of all customers using its services are non-Chinese companies.
Nvidia had not previously imposed such restrictions on service use or limits on customer ratios for its partners. The guidance was reportedly conveyed verbally through Nvidia’s sales staff and regional teams, rather than in writing.
The move is expected to further narrow the options available to Chinese tech companies pursuing AI development. Many Chinese companies have so far signed overseas cloud computing contracts and rented high-performance computing resources to carry out key tasks such as training AI models, in order to avoid U.S. government restrictions. The measure comes as the U.S. government steps up efforts to block China’s access to advanced U.S.-made chips through overseas cloud contracts used to circumvent restrictions.
The U.S. government has significantly tightened export controls on advanced semiconductors to China since 2022, but cases of Nvidia chip smuggling have continued to be uncovered in recent years. Earlier this year, several senior executives at server manufacturer Super Micro Computer, which assembles Nvidia-based servers, were indicted on charges of smuggling Nvidia AI servers worth about $2.5 billion (approximately 3.4 trillion won) into China.
[email protected] Yoon Jae-joon Reporter