China’s Northwest Polytechnic University has purchased a pair of Nvidia H200 artificial intelligence accelerators despite being on an export blacklist. Thus, Washington still has gaps in its restrictions on China’s access to advanced technologies.
Image source: nvidia.com
The procurement information was discovered on the website of the university, which is one of seven elite Chinese universities with close ties to the defense sector – in October it purchased two Nvidia H200 accelerators for 874,700 yuan ($123,000). The equipment was purchased for the needs of the management school through Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology, and not directly from Nvidia. The H200 accelerator features high performance and is designed for training and inference (running) advanced AI models. Its export requires a special US license, the issuance of which is usually denied to organizations on the blacklist, and Northwestern Polytechnic University is one of such organizations.
This year, the university has signed five contracts with Chinese companies to lease computing power, which also provided it with access to H200 accelerators and other powerful Nvidia chips. The university conducts research in the field of military aviation, rocketry and satellites. In 2001, the US Department of Commerce blacklisted him; in 2019, restrictions were tightened: now, when considering export applications to the university, there is a presumption of refusal.
Conducted Reuters An analysis of 26 procurement and corporate reporting documents in China this year found that universities and research institutes are purchasing Nvidia equipment from local suppliers, the export of which is restricted from the United States, or renting access to computing resources based on such chips. Some of these organizations are closely linked to China’s defense industry or military research.
In January, the administration of US President Donald Trump began issuing individual export permits for Nvidia H200 accelerators to China. But this did not cancel the blacklist on which Northwestern Polytechnic University is located – the licensing rules introduced in January provide for measures designed to prevent remote access to such chips by organizations on the list and end users associated with military structures.
In January, the university’s cybersecurity department awarded two seven-month contracts to access the servers, each equipped with eight Nvidia H200 accelerators. Contracts worth 441,700 ($66,211) and 441,000 ($66,106) yuan provided for the refinement of AI models and their training using reinforcement learning methods. Access to servers equipped with eight Nvidia A100 and eight A800 chips was rented – the export of these models to China is prohibited, although the H200 is more powerful. In April, another division of the university purchased computing services that required at least 24 A100 units; the cost of the contract, which included modeling in the field of structural mechanics and fluid dynamics, was 375,000 yuan ($56,213).
The contracts went to several little-known Chinese suppliers of technological equipment – information about the origin of the equipment and the previous operation of the servers is scantly presented in the documentation. At the same time, by law, government organizations are required to verify the ability of suppliers to fulfill orders before declaring them winners of tenders and signing contracts.
In September, Shenzhen University purchased three restricted H100 processors for 769,800 yuan ($115,393.02). Wuhan University of Technology in June purchased a server with an H100 chip for 355,000 yuan ($53,214.50) and four A100 chips in a deal worth 344,000 yuan ($51,565.60). Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, one of the top seven defense universities, purchased four A800s for 489,000 yuan ($73,301.10) in April. It is also known that suppliers have been selected to provide computing power based on Nvidia H800 and A800 to the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences – the cost of access is estimated at 10 yuan ($1.50) per “chip-hour”. Also in January, a government agency in Shenzhen signed a contract for the supply of six A100s worth 484,800 yuan ($72,671.52).
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