WHY IT MATTERS: Think Nvidia products are expensive in the United States? In China, one system is being sold for the equivalent of $1.1 million. But that's for the DGX B300 platform, which not only costs around $400,000 in the US but is also banned in the country. It's those increasingly tight export restrictions that are pushing up prices for AI hardware on China's black market.
The US has restricted the export of Nvidia's most powerful AI chips to China since 2022 over fears that they could be used for military purposes.
However, as is always the case when trying to keep something out of the hands of people who desperately want it, the ban has created a thriving underground trade.
According to the Financial Times, citing interviews with multiple Chinese chip traders, the price of Nvidia's flagship DGX B300 server has climbed to more than 8 million yuan, or about $1.1 million. It had previously been selling for around 4 million yuan, which was still an inflated $589,000.
There's a reason the DGX B300 carries a high price even in the US. The system contains eight Blackwell GPUs, making it exactly the sort of hardware Washington doesn't want Chinese companies using.
