PLA-Linked Blacklisted Chinese University Bought NVIDIA AI Chips
Northwestern Polytechnical University paid $123,000 for two NVIDIA H200 chips through a Chinese supplier and also signed five contracts to rent access to advanced NVIDIA processors.
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A Chinese university with deep ties to the People’s Liberation Army bought two NVIDIA H200 artificial intelligence chips through a domestic supplier despite being on a U.S. export blacklist, Reuters reported, citing procurement records.
Northwestern Polytechnical University paid 874,700 yuan ($123,000) for the processors, according to an October 21 notice on its website.
Its management school bought the chips from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology. The H200 is among NVIDIA’s most powerful chips for training and running advanced AI systems.
The university is one of China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense” and conducts research on military aircraft, missiles, and satellites.
The U.S. Commerce Department added it to the Entity List in 2001, citing alleged involvement in missile proliferation and military research.
Washington tightened restrictions in 2019, making licenses to export controlled U.S. technology to the university subject to denial in most circumstances.
The Trump administration began allowing some H200 exports to China in January on a case-by-case basis.
The university remained subject to separate Entity List restrictions.
The January rules also require safeguards to prevent blacklisted entities and military end users from remotely accessing chips exported under the policy.
University Also Rented Computing Power
Reuters identified five contracts under which the university bought access to H200s and other advanced NVIDIA processors from Chinese suppliers.
In January, its cybersecurity school awarded two seven-month contracts for access to servers with eight H200s each, to fine-tune AI models and train them using reinforcement learning.
In April, another institute at the university awarded a 375,000 yuan contract for computing services that required at least 24 NVIDIA A100 chips for structural and fluid-dynamics simulations.
The procurement records offered little detail on where the processors came from or where the rented servers were located.
Reuters reviewed 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records that documented purchases or rentals of restricted NVIDIA processors.
They included a purchase of four A800 chips by Beihang University, another of the Seven Sons, and a purchase of three H100 chips by Shenzhen University.
The findings come as lawmakers from both U.S. parties press for stronger export controls, including chip tracking and more congressional oversight.
NVIDIA chief executive Jensen Huang has argued that continued sales to China would help preserve U.S. technological leadership and keep Chinese customers reliant on American technology.
Northwestern Polytechnical University, NVIDIA and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
Reuters could not find contact details for Shaanxi Bosuan.
Ahmet Koçak
Ahmet Koçak is a news editor at Clash Report based in Istanbul. He previously served as Deputy Managing Editor at Türkiye Today, helping launch the digital news platform in 2023, and spent three years as Senior Editor at Daily Sabah. His work focuses on breaking news, geopolitics, international affairs, and digital journalism.
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