19 August 2026

Chinese firms access advanced Nvidia chips remotely via Southeast Asia

• ByteDance and Tencent have obtained computing power from Nvidia's most advanced chips by renting access through data centers in Malaysia, Thailand, and other Southeast Asian countries.
• U.S. export controls ban shipping these chips directly to China, but do not restrict remote access to them, creating a legal loophole that Chinese AI companies are exploiting.

How it was covered

The Algorithm

Reported by CNBC