An estimated $1 billion worth of smuggled high-end Nvidia AI processors have reportedly found their way onto the Chinese black market, despite the US government's strict restrictions on exports of the tech.

The eyebrow-raising figure, which Nvidia has neither confirmed nor refuted, was revealed by the Financial Times, which claims to have based its reporting on a combination of interviews and analyses of company filings and sales contracts. If accurate, the report sheds light on the limitations of the US trade policy's ability to control the movement of much sought-after AI technology around the world.

The specific chips cited are Nvidia's B200 series, part of the Blackwell architecture that debuted last year. According to the FT's report, the units sold through China's black market are distributed as ready-made racks containing multiple processors each, which can be installed into datacenters without significant hardware integration. Software needed to fire up the racks is reportedly included in the bargain.

These same chips are used by virtually all US AI powerhouses, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and others. However, exports of advanced Nvidia chips to China have been sharply restricted by US trade policy. That doesn't seem to have stopped the chips from making their way into the Middle Kingdom through less scrupulous distributors, often rumored to include those in nearby countries such as Malaysia and Thailand.

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