GoKawiilSecurity firm Lava finds 32 banned Nvidia B300 chips in China Telecom network
Israeli security firm Lava says it identified 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 chips operating inside the network of state-owned China Telecom, despite these chips being barred from export to China under U.S. controls. Lava says it detected the chips using Nvidia's own DCGM Exporter monitoring tool, though it cannot confirm exactly where in China Telecom's infrastructure they reside. Nvidia did not dispute the finding but said diversion of controlled chips remains statistically insignificant.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The discovery suggests U.S. export restrictions on advanced AI chips continue to be circumvented despite enforcement efforts, echoing earlier reports of large-scale smuggling of Nvidia chips into China. It raises questions about how whitelisted buyers' compliance agreements are being monitored and whether sanctioned entities can access cutting-edge AI compute through indirect channels. Nvidia's response frames the issue as marginal, but the appearance of restricted chips inside a major state-owned telecom operator could intensify scrutiny from U.S. regulators.
- Lava found 32 export-banned Nvidia B300 chips inside China Telecom's network using Nvidia's own monitoring tool.
- The chips are barred from sale to China under U.S. export controls meant for whitelisted buyers only.
- Nvidia did not deny the finding but called chip diversion statistically insignificant compared to China's domestic compute capacity.
Source: tomshardware.com — Oliver Haslam, 2026-10-23
Published there as: “Illegal Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 GPUs found inside state-owned China Telecom's network”
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