C4ADS Supports New York Times Investigation To Identify Banned Nvidia Chips in China
C4ADS partnered with the New York Times to identify 12 state-affiliated entities in China purchasing restricted Nvidia chips, flying in the face of US-imposed export controls intended to curb the East Asian country’s access to technology that enables mass surveillance campaigns and other potential human rights violations.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — In support of an August 4, 2024 New York Times (NYT) article, C4ADS identified 12 state-affiliated entities in China purchasing restricted Nvidia chips after the US Department of Commerce imposed export controls in October 2022. The Nvidia chips identified by the NYT and C4ADS, also known as graphics processing units (GPUs), are well-known for their efficiency in training artificial intelligence (AI) models.
C4ADS reviewed over 100,000 publicly available procurement documents to identify the restricted chips and servers that would contain them. C4ADS found a number of entities in those procurement documents that also appear on the Entity List for their support of China’s military modernization. Other buyers were large state-affiliated universities or research labs.
As part of this investigation, C4ADS also identified companies likely to be involved in trade and supply chain networks for powerful AI chips and servers. Trade analysis revealed a Vietnamese company that appeared to be importing data center servers marked as containing restricted Nvidia chips from Taiwan to Vietnam. Trade records indicate that same company also sent similar server hardware to a consignee in Beijing.
C4ADS specializes in identifying where and how dual-use technologies are moved around the world, including tracing the supply chains of sensitive military technology supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as high-tech chips supporting China’s defense industry and human rights violations.
“This investigation shows that the methods we use to monitor and detect high-risk trade can be applied to track the flows of computing hardware needed to train AI models,” said Mollie Zapata, Human Security Program Director at C4ADS. “We will continue to apply our expertise to undermine China’s access to products that enable its mass surveillance campaigns and other human rights violations.”
Even as dual-use technology evolves into ever-more disruptive permutations, malign state-sponsored actors continue to find new ways around mounting export controls in service of their country’s ends, whether foreign or domestic. In the light of growing concerns around China’s human rights violations at home and abroad, as well as its consistent trade relationship with Russia, C4ADS looks forward to continuing to expand its work on this issue.
Thank you for your continued support of our work. For more information about our China portfolio or Human Security program, please visit our website at c4ads.org. For any related media inquiries, please email [email protected].
