Israeli security firm Lava says it identified 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 GPUs within the network of China Telecom, a state-owned Chinese telecommunications operator. The firm could not pinpoint the devices’ physical location, and its identification has not been independently verified.
Nvidia downplayed the finding, arguing that the scale of chip smuggling is small compared with the computing capacity already available in China.
Lava’s detection leaves location unresolved
Lava says it identified the GPUs through Nvidia’s DCGM Exporter. The firm’s account associates the devices with China Telecom’s network but does not establish which data center or server racks house them.
How the hardware was obtained or reached the network remains unknown. Lava’s identification alone does not establish a supply route or demonstrate that a particular party violated export rules.
Nvidia disputes the scale of smuggling
An Nvidia spokesperson said, “Governments, researchers, and media have all found insignificant diversion of controlled US products, less than one half of one percent in recent court cases — a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of domestic compute China already has.”
The spokesperson added, “With tens of millions of GPUs in service in approved countries, this report again demonstrates that smuggling is a nonfactor, blocked by governments on both sides of the globe.”
Those statements present Nvidia’s assessment of the scale of diversion. They do not resolve the physical location of the devices Lava says it identified or explain how the hardware was acquired.
