Chinese tech giants are training their models offshore to sidestep US curbs on Nvidia’s chips
Nvidia can’t sell its best AI chips in the world’s second-largest economy. That’s an Nvidia problem. But it’s also a China problem — and it’s one that the region’s tech giants have resorted to solving by training their AI models overseas, according to a new report from the Financial Times.
Citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter, the FT reported that “Alibaba and ByteDance are among the tech groups training their latest large language models in data centers across south-east Asia.” Clusters of data centers have particularly boomed in Singapore and Malaysia, with many of the sites kitted out with Nvidia’s latest architecture.
One exception, per the FT, is DeepSeek, which continues to be trained domestically, having reportedly built up a stockpile of Nvidia chips before the US export ban came into effect.
Last week, Nvidia spiked on the news that the Trump administration was reportedly considering letting the tech giant sell its best Hopper chips — the generation of chips that preceded Blackwell — to China.
Citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter, the FT reported that “Alibaba and ByteDance are among the tech groups training their latest large language models in data centers across south-east Asia.” Clusters of data centers have particularly boomed in Singapore and Malaysia, with many of the sites kitted out with Nvidia’s latest architecture.
One exception, per the FT, is DeepSeek, which continues to be trained domestically, having reportedly built up a stockpile of Nvidia chips before the US export ban came into effect.
Last week, Nvidia spiked on the news that the Trump administration was reportedly considering letting the tech giant sell its best Hopper chips — the generation of chips that preceded Blackwell — to China.
