China’s tech giants move AI development overseas to secure Nvidia chips
Top Chinese firms are training their artificial intelligence models abroad to access Nvidia's chips and avoid US measures aimed at curbing their progress in advanced technology, Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Image by Akio Kon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Top Chinese firms are training their artificial intelligence models abroad to access Nvidia's chips and avoid US measures aimed at curbing their progress in advanced technology, Financial Times reported on Thursday.
Alibaba and ByteDance are among the tech firms training their newest large language models in Southeast Asian data centres, the report said, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
According to the report, there has been a steady increase in training in offshore locations after US moved to restrict sales of the H20 in April.
Chinese companies rely on lease agreements for overseas data centres owned and operated by non-Chinese entities, the newspaper said, noting that DeepSeek, which gathered a large stock of Nvidia chips before the US export bans, was an exception with its model being trained domestically.
Deepseek is also collaborating with domestic chip manufacturers led by Huawei, to optimise and develop the next generation of Chinese AI chips, FT added.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Alibaba, ByteDance, Nvidia, DeepSeek and Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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