Dragon's Army-linked university was served Nvidia chips despite US sanctions

Beijing: A Chinese university with deep ties to the People's Liberation Army bought Nvidia's powerful H200 AI chips last month despite being on a US export blacklist, procurement records show, highlighting gaps in Washington's efforts to curb China's access to advanced technology.

The findings come as Nvidia and its CEO Jensen Huang face mounting scrutiny in Washington over his lobbying for looser restrictions on sales of AI chips to China, following reports alleging he was targeted by a Chinese spy.

Huang has argued that continued US sales to China would preserve American technological leadership and keep Chinese customers reliant on US technology. But some US lawmakers say access to Nvidia's most powerful AI chips can speed China's development of AI systems for weapons design, intelligence analysis and military modernisation.


Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have urged stronger controls on China's access to advanced AI chips, such as chip-tracking requirements and greater congressional oversight of exports.

Three Republican congressional committee chairmen have requested a briefing with Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative.

Northwestern Polytechnical University bought two H200 chips last month for $123,000 according to an October 21 procurement record on its website. Northwestern is a member of the "Seven Sons of National Defense" group of Chinese universities under US sanctions and with a history of conducting defence-related research for Beijing.

The chips were purchased for its management school from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology rather than directly from Nvidia, the record shows.

The H200 is among Nvidia's most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems and is subject to US export licence approvals, which are normally denied for blacklisted institutions such as Northwestern Polytechnical.

Northwestern Polytechnical also bought access this year to H200 chips and other powerful Nvidia AI processors through five contracts for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies, procurement records show.

Stock gains over 4.7%

CoreWeave stock jumped more than 26% at 11.15 PM on Wednesday, igniting a rally in battered artificial; intelligence (AI) cloud stocks, and helping lift shares of key backer Nvidia by 4.7%, after a bruising two-day slide.

CoreWeave's hefty spending yielded strong revenue growth and the company signaled a pullback from the borrowing binge that had set off alarms of an AI bubble. CoreWeave reported Q3 earnings of $3.66 billion, up 168% YoY from approximately $1.36 billion.