State-linked Chinese entities are using US cloud computing services to access restricted chips.
First reported by Reuters, the entities are turning to Amazon Web Services (AWS) or its competitors to access US chips and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
Reuters cites 50 public tender documents posted over the last year on Chinese databases that show that 11 Chinese entities have sought access to US technologies or cloud services.
Those entities include: Zhejiang Lab and the National Center of Technology of Innovation for EDA which have accessed or expressed interest in AI models via AWS; Shenzhen University and Fujian Chuanzheng Communications College which have accessed advanced US chips via AWS; Chongqing Changan Automobile Co and Sichuan University, which have either accessed or expressed interest in OpenAI tools via Microsoft's Azure; the Suzhou Institute of Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China, Southern University of Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, China Coal Research Institute, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure, all of which have either access or expressed interest in US chips via unspecified cloud services.
Reuters notes that those naming AWS specifically were accessing the cloud services via Chinese intermediary companies.
"AWS complies with all applicable US laws, including trade laws, regarding the provision of AWS services inside and outside of China," said a spokesperson for Amazon's cloud business.
DCD has reached out to AWS, Microsoft, and Nvidia for comment.
The US is currently engaged in a trade war with China, imposing restrictions on the export of chips to the People's Republic in order to stop the country from having access to advanced technology that could be used for military modernization and human rights abuses.
On November 17, 2023, the US government expanded the sanctions that were already in place to stop more advanced AI chips, like the ones designed by Nvidia, from making their way to China.
In order to comply with government sanctions, Nvidia has developed the HGX H20, L20 PCIe, and L2 PCIe chips, pared-back variants of existing products, designed to comply with the export rules. Those came after a prior pared-back version was also banned.
Despite this, reports have emerged in January 2024 of Chinese Universities managing to skirt restrictions to access Nvidia A100s and H100s. This was reiterated in April 2024.
The Information has previously reported TikTok's China-owner Bytedance used Oracle to access high-end Nvidia GPUs in the US. The publication reported two, unnamed smaller cloud companies in the US had declined to rent Nvidia H100 chips because it ‘seemed to go against the spirit’ of US chip sanctions.
In June 2024, the US government announced that it was looking at expanding chip sanctions to include HBM and gate-all-around technology.
Last month, reports surfaced that the US government was exploring restricting US cloud companies from providing services to Chinese companies.
