China bypasses U.S. ban on equipment supplies by leasing it from local suppliers

Chinese companies that have been banned by the US from purchasing American technology are leasing it from local cloud providers, bypassing the restrictions. About it reported edition of The Financial Times.

In addition, GPUs NVIDIA The A100s are in high demand with Chinese AI developers who can’t afford to buy their own graphics cards.

Some Chinese cloud services have confirmed that customers have rented GPUs through front companies. These clients are often businesses in the AI ​​field, an area where lack of access to GPUs or the use of older products can be a major barrier to success.

The Financial Times mentioned one Chinese cloud provider that provides access to 8 NVIDIA A 100 graphics cards with Tensor Cores for $10 per hour. In comparison, AWS leases 8 GPUs starting at $11.57 per hour for 3 years. Individual prices on request start at $32.77 per hour.

It’s worth noting that the US is already aware of China’s evasion of graphics card sanctions. If major Chinese vendors are found to be leasing out processors banned from China, the US has obvious leverage – Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud have branches in the US. In addition, Chinese cloud technology providers are at risk of US sanctions due to their actions.