被列入黑名單的中國科技巨頭如何持續購買美國頂尖人工智能晶片（1/2）

Recently The New York Times reported the following:

How a Blacklisted Chinese Tech Giant Kept Buying America’s Best A.I. Chips (1/2)

Washington imposed sanctions on Inspur because of its work with the Chinese military. But the company’s subsidiary kept shipping Nvidia’s best chips to feed China’s leading A.I. firms.

The NYT - By Ana SwansonPaul MozurTripp Mickle and Keith Bradsher (Ana Swanson reported from Washington and Jinan, China; Paul Mozur from Taiwan and Singapore; Tripp Mickle from Milpitas, Calif.; and Keith Bradsher from Jinan.)

Sept. 6, 2026

Updated 6:45 a.m. ET

For years, a sign outside one of Silicon Valley’s many nondescript offices said Inspur, the name of one of China’s most important technology companies.

But in March 2023, the United States added Inspur Group to the so-called entity list, a blacklist with more than 3,000 companies that have been restricted from doing business with the United States because they are considered a security risk.

Not long after, the Inspur sign was changed to Aivres, the name of Inspur’s new U.S. subsidiary. The subsidiary continued with its Chinese parent company’s work, helping it build a thriving global network to provide the computing power that supplies China’s growing artificial intelligence industry.

The Silicon Valley subsidiary, which appears to be taking advantage of several loopholes in U.S. export law, has played a key role in Inspur’s sidestepping of American restrictions. Federal officials have begun looking into the subsidiary’s business, but it is not clear where that inquiry stands, said four officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss it.

The New York Times examined thousands of shipment records, corporate documents and supply contracts to piece together how Inspur’s network works. Reporters also visited sites in China, Southeast Asia and California, and spoke with more than a dozen current and former officials, tech executives and industry analysts.

The U.S. government prohibits the most advanced chips, like the Blackwell chip from the Silicon Valley giant Nvidia, from being sent to any company in China. And U.S. law bars any company anywhere in the world from buying restricted products made with American technology on behalf of a blacklisted company. But there are few restrictions on companies in China that bar them from remotely gaining access to A.I. data centers in Southeast Asia.

Whether Chinese firms are getting access to cutting-edge technology, particularly high-end computer chips made by Nvidia, has become a hot question in Silicon Valley and Washington, where executives and officials worry that China could use A.I. for hacking, surveillance and military operations.

Chinese A.I. companies are also closing the performance gap on systems made by their American competitors, raising concerns that the Chinese companies are using American technology.

From April 2024 through February 2026, Aivres exported at least $5.6 billion of advanced technology from the United States to Southeast Asia, including more than $3 billion of computers containing cutting-edge Blackwell chips and equipment from Nvidia, according to trade records analyzed by ImportGenius, a data firm, and The Times.

That technology went to data centers and technology firms in Southeast Asia that serve China’s biggest tech firms, including Alibaba and ByteDance, trade records show. Megaspeed, a China-linked company that U.S. officials have been investigating over whether it smuggled restricted chips into China, was among that group of recipients. (One of Megaspeed’s subsidiaries has financial ties with Alibaba, according to Malaysian business documents.)

Other technology went from Inspur’s network of global subsidiaries to an electronics manufacturer in Malaysia, which has been shipping unlabeled but high-priced servers to China, according to trade records drawn mostly from Malaysia and Indonesia. The servers are sent to a new firm, Maginfra, which has supplied high-performance computers to Chinese universities and state-owned firms, according to Chinese contracts and procurement records.

Inspur, Aivres, Maginfra, Alibaba and ByteDance did not respond to requests for comment. Megaspeed did not provide a comment. John Rizzo, a spokesman for Nvidia, said the company did not support “diverted products,” and sold to well-known partners “who work with us to ensure that all sales comply with U.S. export control rules.”

The Trump administration rolled back Biden-era restrictions on remote access by Chinese companies to data centers in other countries, and both the administration and Congress have been weighing new rules to replace them. Nvidia’s Mr. Rizzo said the business brought “tens of billions of dollars and high-paying jobs home.”

The administration has also taken a more cautious approach to placing sanctions on Chinese firms, after attempts last year to expand the entity list drew blowback from China. Inside the Commerce Department, which enforces the list, six current and former officials described an agency that had lost its appetite for cases involving China or Nvidia. Ten months have passed without a firm’s being added to the entity list, the longest stretch in 18 years.

A White House official said the Trump administration had enacted the most rigorous export control regime in modern history and was committed to safeguarding America’s national security.

But Jordan Nanos, an analyst at SemiAnalysis, a tech research firm, who has studied Aivres’s business, said that the firm operated in the United States with the same servers, employees and offices as its parent company, Inspur, and that federal officials seemed to have done little about it.

“Are they trying to ban them, or are they not?” he said

(to be continued)

Translation

被列入黑名單的中國科技巨頭如何持續購買美國頂尖人工智能晶片（1/2）

華盛頓因浪潮 (Inspur) 與中國軍方合作而對其實施制裁。但浪潮的子公司卻持續向中國領先的人工智能公司供應英偉達的頂級晶片。

多年來，矽谷眾多不起眼的辦公大樓之一外掛著一塊牌子，上面寫著“浪潮”( Inspur)，這是中國最重要的科技公司之一的名字。

但2023年3月，美國將浪潮集團列入所謂的實體清單。這是一份包含3,000多家公司的黑名單，這些公司因被視為安全風險而被禁止與美國開展業務。

不久之後，浪潮的標誌被改為艾弗斯（Aivres），這是浪潮新成立的美國子公司的名稱。該子公司繼續進行其中國母公司的工作，幫助其建立一個蓬勃發展的全球網絡，為中國蓬勃發展的人工智能產業提供運算能力。

這家位於矽谷的子公司似乎利用了美國出口法律的多個漏洞，在浪潮規避美國限制方面發揮了關鍵作用。四位不願透露姓名的官員表示，聯邦官員已開始調查該子公司的業務，但目前尚不清楚調查進展如何。他們表示，由於未獲授權討論此事，因此要求匿名。

《紐約時報》查閱了數千份出貨記錄、公司文件和供應合同，以拼湊出浪潮的網絡運作方式。記者也造訪了中國、東南亞和加州的多個地點，並採訪了十幾位現任和前任官員、科技高層和行業分析師。

美國政府禁止將最先進的晶片，例如矽谷巨頭英偉達的 Blackwell 晶片，運往中國的任何公司。美國法律禁止世界任何地方的任何公司，去代表已被列入黑名單的公司去購買使用由美國技術製造來的受限產品。但中國公司在遠程地存取東南亞的人工智能數據中心方面幾乎沒有受到什麼限制。

中國公司是否能夠獲得尖端技術，尤其是英偉達生產的高階電腦晶片，已成為矽谷和華盛頓的熱門話題。當地的高層和官員擔心，中國可能會利用人工智能進行駭客攻擊、監控和軍事行動。

中國人工智能企業也正在縮小與美國作為競爭對手在系統之間的性能差距，這引發了人們對中國企業使用美國技術的擔憂。

根據數據公司 ImportGenius 和《紐約時報》分析的貿易記錄顯示，從 2024 年 4 月到 2026 年 2 月，Aivres 公司從美國向東南亞出口了至少 56 億美元的先進技術，其中包括價值超過 30 億美元搭載了英偉達 Blackwell 尖端晶片的電腦和設備。

貿易記錄顯示，這些技術被輸送到東南亞的数據中心和科技公司。這些數據中心和科技公司為包括阿里巴巴和字節跳動在內的中國大型科技公司提供服務。Megaspeed是一家與中國有關的公司，美國官員一直在調查該公司是否向中國走私了受限晶片，該公司也是那群接收技術者之一。（根據馬來西亞商業文件顯示，Megaspeed的一家子公司與阿里巴巴有財務聯繫。）

根據主要來自馬來西亞和印尼的貿易記錄顯示，其他技術則從浪潮集團的全球子公司網絡流向馬來西亞一家電子產品製造商，該公司一直在向中國出口未貼標籤但價格昂貴的伺服器。這些伺服器最終被送往一家名為Maginfra的新公司，根據中國的合約和採購記錄，該公司已向中國高校和國有企業供應高效能電腦。

浪潮集團、Aivres、Maginfra、阿里巴巴和字節跳動跳動均未回應置評請求。 Megaspeed也未置評。英偉達發言人John Rizzo表示，該公司不支持 “轉售產品” ，並向知名合作夥伴銷售產品， “這些合作夥伴與我們合作，確保所有銷售均符合美國出口管制規定” 。

特朗普政府撤銷了拜登時期對中國企業遠端存取其他國家数據中心的限制，目前美國政府和國會都在考慮制定新的規則來取代這些限制。英偉達執行長Rizzo表示，該業務為美國帶來了「數百億美元的收入和高薪就業機會」。

去年，美國政府試圖擴大實體清單，但遭到中國的強烈反對。此後，美國政府在對中國企業實施制裁方面採取了更謹慎的態度。負責執行清單的商務部內部，目前有六位現任或前任官員都表示，該機構似乎對涉及中國或英偉達的案件失去了興趣。十個月過去了，沒有一家公司被列入實體清單，這是18年來最長的間隔期。

一位白宮官員表示，特朗普政府已經實施了近代史上最嚴格的出口管制制度，並致力於維護美國的國家安全。

但科技研究公司 SemiAnalysis 的分析師 Jordan Nanos 曾研究過 Aivres 的業務。他表示，該公司在美國運營，使用與其母公司浪潮（Inspur）相同的伺服器、員工和辦公室，然而聯邦官員似乎對此並未採取任何行動。

他問:「他們到底有沒有試圖禁制這些公司？」。

（待續）