A Chinese university with deep ties to the People's Liberation Army bought Nvidia H200 chips last month despite sitting on a US export blacklist, procurement records show. The finding comes as Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang face scrutiny in Washington over chip sales to China.
Northwestern Polytechnical University bought two H200 chips last month for 874,700 yuan ($123,000), according to an October 21 procurement record on its website. The university is a member of China's "Seven Sons of National Defense" group of elite defence-focused universities. Reuters reported the purchase, which it says highlights gaps in Washington's efforts to curb China's access to advanced technology.
The chips were bought for the university's management school from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology rather than directly from Nvidia, the record shows. Northwestern Polytechnical, Nvidia and the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to requests for comment.
Blacklisted since 2001
The US Commerce Department added the university to its Entity List in 2001 over its alleged involvement in missile-proliferation activities and military research. It tightened the restrictions in 2019, so licences for exports of controlled US technology to the university are subject to a policy of denial in most circumstances.
President Donald Trump's administration began allowing some H200 exports to China on a case-by-case basis in January. That policy did not lift the separate restrictions on Entity List organisations such as Northwestern Polytechnical.
Rented computing and a wider market
The university also bought access this year to H200 chips and other Nvidia processors through five contracts for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies, procurement records show. Its cybersecurity school awarded two seven-month contracts in January for servers containing eight H200 chips each, worth 441,700 yuan and 441,000 yuan.
Other institutions appear in the records too. A Reuters review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year found universities and research institutions buying restricted Nvidia chips or renting access to computing services that use them. Shenzhen University, for example, bought three H100 processors for 769,800 yuan in September.
Pressure on Nvidia in Washington
Huang has argued that continued US sales to China would preserve American technological leadership. Some US lawmakers say access to Nvidia's most powerful AI chips can speed China's development of AI systems for weapons design, intelligence analysis and military modernisation. Three Republican congressional committee chairmen have requested a briefing with Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative.
Source: Reuters via Investing.com
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