AI chip restore companies in China are thriving on account of heavy demand surgeSmuggled GPUs gasoline a booming underground restore market amid US export restrictionsChinese retailers simulate knowledge facilities and repair lots of of chips month-to-month at scaleA quiet however rising enterprise has emerged in China that focuses on repairing Nvidia’s superior AI chips, regardless of strict US export controls.Studies from Reuters discovered round a dozen small companies, primarily based mostly in Shenzhen, claiming they service massive numbers of Nvidia’s H100 and A100 GPUs, though these chips have been formally banned from sale to China in 2022.One firm instructed the information company it repairs as much as 500 Nvidia AI chips each month – and with roughly 12 comparable companies working year-round, that might quantity to tens of 1000’s of chips yearly.
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Vital demandMany of those models are worn down from heavy use, particularly as some have run across the clock for years in AI coaching workloads.“There’s actually important restore demand,” Reuters was instructed by the co-owner of a Shenzhen agency that moved into AI {hardware} in late 2024.That demand led to the creation of a second firm purely to deal with AI chip restore.Their facility features a server room that may simulate knowledge heart situations with as much as 256 servers.Signal as much as the TechRadar Professional publication to get all the highest information, opinion, options and steerage your online business must succeed!One other store that shifted from GPU leases to repairs instructed Reuters it fixes round 200 chips per thirty days, sometimes charging about 10% of the unique buy worth.Repairs can embody fan alternative, circuit board fixes, reminiscence diagnostics, and software program testing.Nvidia can’t legally help or substitute restricted GPUs inside China. An Nvidia spokesperson stated solely the corporate and authorised companions are licensed to supply the required service and help, including that operating restricted chips with out full infrastructure just isn’t viable long-term.The doubtless excessive failure fee raises issues about what’s going to occur to tens of 1000’s of growing older A100s and earlier GPUs as soon as they fail.The existence of such a restore sector is right down to the widespread smuggling of banned chips into China, one thing we’ve reported on beforehand.Whereas Nvidia not too long ago started providing the H20 GPU in China to adjust to export restrictions, many purchasers there nonetheless desire the banned H100 for coaching LLMs.You may also like
