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The EU is negotiating with China to lift export restrictions on German firm Sindlhauser Materials, a supplier to ASML, in exchange for the EU removing sanctions on an unnamed Chinese company accused of aiding Russia, according to Bloomberg sources. The talks occurred during EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič's visit to Beijing, with the EU expected to act first, pending unanimous approval from member states.
Since China imposed rare earth export controls in October 2025, Beijing has repeatedly granted only short-lived reprieves tied to US concessions, most recently extending a truce to January 2027 while still restricting sales. In June, China added MP Materials and USA Rare Earth—the two firms central to US efforts to build a non-Chinese supply chain—to an export control list, even as a suspension was in effect.
The Centre for Technology & Statecraft estimates Chinese chipmakers imported 343 immersion DUV lithography scanners from ASML between 2012 and early 2026, not counting equipment sent to multinational fabs operating in China. CTS says about 270 of these are Twinscan NXT:1980i machines, which offer resolution and overlay precision that could support 7nm-class chip production through multipatterning techniques.
The Department of Justice announced the arrest of Greg Lui, 38, CEO of Earthmade Computer, accusing him of using falsified paperwork to reroute servers containing restricted Nvidia A100 and H100 GPUs to China via Malaysia and Singapore. The DOJ says the scheme ran from October 2023 to August 2026 and involved shipments worth more than $300 million, including fraudulent buyer documents and false claims to a Malaysian official that goods had reached China.
The Department of Justice has arrested Greg Lui, also known as Yiu Kong Lui, owner of Earthmade Computer Inc., alleging he and unnamed co-conspirators smuggled more than $300 million in export-restricted Nvidia chips to China between 2023 and 2024. Prosecutors say the chips were routed through Malaysia and Singapore using falsified paperwork before reaching Chinese buyers, including the Chinese government. Lui faces charges of conspiracy to violate export control laws, outbound smuggling, and money laundering conspiracy, carrying a potential 20-year sentence.
US prosecutors arrested Greg Lui for allegedly smuggling servers containing $300 million worth of NVIDIA AI chips to China, violating export controls, according to Bloomberg. The report also details an earlier case involving a red hair dryer used to strip serial numbers off NVIDIA server boxes, and describes new data centers in western China believed capable of housing 115,000 restricted NVIDIA processors.
According to The Information, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has asked Alibaba and ByteDance to detail plans for purchasing Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500 chips, which are officially gaming GPUs. Sources say Beijing expects these chips could be repurposed into servers to help run China's leading AI models, potentially loosening restrictions on Nvidia hardware.
Usage data shared with CNBC shows Chinese AI models from firms like DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba now account for a majority of tokens processed on developer platforms OpenRouter and Vercel, up sharply from early 2026. On OpenRouter, Chinese models' share rose to 57%-67% in mid-September from 6%-13% in February; on Vercel it climbed to 55% in August from 11% in January. Two U.S. House committees are investigating the trend amid existing export controls on advanced chips to China.
SemiAnalysis founder Dylan Patel says Chinese firm Puzhi Electronic Technology is crowdfunding a system built around AMD's Zynq UltraScale+ XCZU47DR RFSoC, a U.S. export-controlled chip, being quoted at roughly $1,000 versus a $36,000 U.S. list price. AMD told Tom's Hardware it did not directly sell or ship the chips into China and that it investigates suspected diversion cases, without confirming whether an investigation into this specific case has begun.
Ahead of Xi Jinping's first U.S. state visit in over a decade, Huawei moved forward the release of its next AI chip by three quarters, Alibaba launched what it called China's most powerful AI processor, and DeepSeek reportedly assembled the largest known cluster of Huawei chips. The releases come as Washington continues restricting China's access to advanced Nvidia chips and chipmaking equipment.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US and China have discussed creating an AI safety notification mechanism, allowing either country to alert the other if its AI systems pose risks or behave unpredictably. The proposal comes ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, and follows continued US export controls and a Justice Department case accusing six Chinese AI firms of stealing US technology, which China disputes.
UK neocloud firm Nscale disclosed in documents tied to its US IPO that a ByteDance subsidiary called Spring accounted for $24 million of its $33 million 2025 revenue, giving Spring access to 2,304 Nvidia B200 chips at Nscale's Glomfjord, Norway facility. The ByteDance link surfaced not in Nscale's S-1 but in a supporting $105 million loan document with Macquarie, and the Financial Times reports the arrangement was legal under current US export rules.