Chinese businesses and universities turn to back alley GPU dealers to power AI

pcgamer.com:

There's reportedly a bubbling back alley market for imported Nvidia graphics cards in China. These are sought after chips globally, since the rise of large language models like ChatGPT, but in China there's a different challenge. That's because the US banned Nvidia from exporting its most powerful AI accelerators last year.

China is no longer allowed to directly import any Nvidia A100 or H100 GPUs. And before you think that's a chance for AMD to swoop in with its massive Instinct cards, AMD's MI250 is also blocked from sale to the country.

China has to make do with less powerful options, or so it's decreed. Such options as AMD's MI100, which it said last September was not likely hit by the US sanctions, or Nvidia's purpose-designed A800 and H800. These two Nvidia designs are said to purposefully limit bandwidth to comply with the new export controls.

But that's clearly not enough for some. Reuters reports an underground chip market has popped up in light of the new restrictions on exports. 

These chip markets are largely said to be located in the city of Shenzhen, one of China's largest technology hubs. Vendors that Reuters spoke to say that they can provide small numbers of Nvidia A100 GPUs to customers willing to pay, let's say, over-the-odds for an AI accelerator. 

The report claims the cards are sold for around $20,000, which is roughly double the going price of $10,000. But similarly high demand for these chips due to a recent AI acceleration boom, one which is seeing Nvidia's Wall Street value top $1 trillion dollars, is also helping to keep prices high.

By comparison, double the price for a graphics card was altogether a pretty good deal during the crypto-mining craze.

Reuters spoke to 10 vendors that claimed they