Nvidia's banned AI chips double in price on China's black market, FT reports - Yahoo Finance

According to the Financial Times, Nvidia's banned AI chips have more than doubled in price on China's black market. This development highlights the intense pressure in the global semiconductor supply ... Read original →

U.S. export bans on high-end AI chips to China have backfired, fueling black-market premiums over 100% and exposing systemic fragility in the global semiconductor supply chain under geopolitical stress. Technically, Chinese AI firms are forced to extend legacy chip lifecycles, degrading model training efficiency and accelerating software stack adaptation around domestic alternatives like Ascend and Cambricon. Compliance burdens now permeate operations—multinationals must maintain segregated, audit-heavy supply lanes, inflating costs. Strategically, AMD is expanding MI300 distribution via Southeast Asia, while Huawei leverages advanced packaging to boost effective compute density. Over the next 12–24 months, this distorted market will catalyze China’s adoption of chiplet and near-memory computing architectures, while pressuring U.S. allies to reassess control efficacy: when gray markets become essential demand buffers, the marginal utility of tech blockades rapidly diminishes.