Chinese tech giants move AI training overseas amid Nvidia chips limit

Prominent Chinese firms are exploring options to bypass US export controls on high-performance semiconductors and counter measures intended to impede their progress in advanced AI development.

The recent development specifically demonstrated that Alibaba and ByteDance are among the prominent tech firms training their foundation models on South Asian data centers.

There has been a progressive increase in training in offshore data centers after the US moved to suppress sales of the H20(or similar advanced chips) in April.

Chinese companies rely on contractual agreements for global data centers operated by non-Chinese entities.

However, DeepSeek deviated from this trend, having accumulated a large stock of Nvidia chips before the US export bans, allowing it to train its model domestically.

DeepSeek in a joint collaboration with domestic chip manufacturers led by Huawei is to improve and develop the next generation of Chinese AI chips.

The recent financial report concludes that US policymakers must comply with the reality that export controls are inadequate to stop China’s AI ambitions.

As Reuters could not immediately validate the report. In addition, Alibaba, ByteDance, DeepSeek and Huawei did not instantly respond to requests.

Nonetheless, being a global production network marks a clear pathway towards the high-end chips.