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China has stepped up enforcement of its controls on chip imports, as Beijing seeks to wean the country’s technology companies away from American products such as Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors.
Teams of customs officers have been mobilized at major ports across the country in the past few weeks to conduct stringent checks on semiconductor shipments, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The inspections were launched with the aim of ensuring that local companies stop ordering Nvidia chipsets destined for China after directives from Chinese regulators to discourage their purchase, the people said.
The targeted processors – Nvidia’s H20 and RTX Pro 6000D – are designed to comply with US export controls and maintain the chipmaker’s market share in China’s Silicon Valley.
But the checks were recently expanded to include all advanced semiconductor products, to better target smuggling of advanced chips that violate U.S. export restrictions, one of the people said.
Chinese customs had previously done little to prevent chip imports as long as appropriate duties were paid at the border. Financial Times I mentioned At least $1 billion worth of Nvidia’s top AI chips were smuggled and sold in China in the three months from May.
The border crackdown also represents Beijing’s determination to ensure its technology companies are freed from dependence on American technology and help the country win the artificial intelligence race against the United States.
China is seeking to put its resources behind domestic chipmakers, so that they can catch up in product performance and manufacturing capacity.
In addition to tightening border controls, some customs officials also looked into whether companies had made false declarations in the past about importing advanced semiconductor products, two people familiar with the inspections said.
US giant commercial quantities research tower was Investigation On charges of smuggling devices including advanced chips, the Financial Times reported last week. The investigation was part of this new wave of import controls.
Chinese regulators, led by the China Cyberspace Administration (CAC), an internet watchdog, told technology companies led by ByteDance and Alibaba in mid-September to end their orders and testing of all Nvidia products. The new border controls were implemented as a coordinated effort alongside the CAC.
The regulator’s guidance came just two months after Nvidia announced that the Trump administration had lifted an earlier US export ban on the H20, while also offering the RTX Pro 6000D, another watered-down AI chip, to China.
The latest moves occurred when senior officials in Beijing decided that local chips had reached performance standards that were comparable to China’s own Nvidia chips.
China also aims to triple its production of advanced semiconductors next year, in a move aimed at meeting demand left by Nvidia, the Financial Times reported last month.
While Nvidia no longer includes China in its future revenue forecasts, it recorded $4.6 billion in the first quarter of this fiscal year from H20 sales to China, its fourth-largest market, before the US temporarily restricted sales.
Chinese Customs did not respond to requests for comment. Nvidia declined to comment.
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