Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent have together ordered more than $35 billion worth of Nvidia chips, Reuters reported Tuesday, as China’s compute-hungry tech giants turn to the US.
The deals illustrate the continuing entanglement of the US and Chinese tech ecosystems, despite intensifying drives in Washington and Beijing to wall off their AI sectors.
Beijing recently proposed export controls on AI technologies, seemingly aimed at stopping Chinese-built models from leaving the country, while the US has instituted export curbs and banned some Chinese AI from government devices.
The heightened political scrutiny hasn’t stamped out other exchanges, either: A 17-year-old former Moonshot AI researcher recently left China for the US, as the global competition for tech talent heats up.