By Muhammad Zuhair
Publication Date: 2025-12-21 14:57:00
While Blackwell is banned from being exported to China, it appears that domestic AI giants have found their workarounds to access NVIDIA’s latest technology.
Chinese AI Giants Are More Inclined Towards the ‘GPU Rental’ Model Over Getting Hopper Chips, Claims Analyst
There’s a dire need for computing power among Chinese AI giants. While the nation is making efforts to establish domestic AI chip providers, companies like Tencent are looking for alternative methods to fulfill their needs. One prominent option is using rental compute services, since the U.S. export controls don’t have ‘strict’ boundaries set for such a venture, which is why the Financial Times reports that Tencent now has access to NVIDIA’s B200 AI chips, through a Japanese neocloud Datasection. The firm is reportedly holding rental contracts worth more than $1.2 billion from Tencent alone.
Since then, Datasection has gained more than $1.2bn in contracts with one large customer to access a significant portion of its 15,000 Nvidia Blackwell processors. That customer, which has a relationship with Datasection via a third party, is Tencent, according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal allows the Chinese tech giant to use a legal but geopolitically fraught strategy to access advanced AI chips at a time Washington restricts the export of Nvidia’s top hardware to China.
– The Financial Times
Datasection has access to NVIDIA’s latest Blackwell AI chips,…