Prices of Nvidia’s restricted AI chips have more than doubled on China’s black market over the past six months, according to the Financial Times. The DGX B300 server, which contains eight B300 GPUs, has surged to over 8 million yuan (approximately $1.1 million) in China’s underground market, up from about 4 million yuan late last year. In comparison, the same system retails for around $550,000 in the United States.
China’s customs authorities began blocking imports of Nvidia’s H200 chips in January, with directives stating that the processors were “not permitted” to enter the country. Concurrently, Beijing has pressured domestic companies to limit purchases of foreign hardware, permitting exceptions only for university research.
On the U.S. side, the Commerce Department in late May closed a loophole that allowed restricted Rubin and Blackwell chips, along with AMD’s MI350x, to reach Chinese firms via offshore subsidiaries. The Bureau of Industry and Security confirmed that licensing requirements apply to all entities headquartered in China, regardless of their operational locations.
The strong demand for Nvidia hardware persists among Chinese enterprises despite Beijing’s attempts to shift reliance to domestic alternatives from Huawei and local chipmakers. The crackdown on grey-market smuggling, intensified by the arrest of a Supermicro co-founder earlier this year, has sharply reduced supply without affecting demand.
Reuters reported in April that monthly rental prices for B300 servers in China reached as high as 190,000 yuan, demonstrating the severe compute scarcity faced by Chinese AI firms. Meanwhile, Nvidia shares fell more than 4% to around $200, extending a decline of nearly 3% over the past month, amid broader technology selloffs and concerns about its revenue from China.
Nvidia has not generated significant revenue from H200 sales to China, despite having U.S. government export license approvals. The company expressed uncertainty in May regarding whether any imports would ultimately be allowed.
