Nvidia Reportedly Tells Cloud Partners to Sell Most of Their Capacity Outside China
The Financial Times reports a verbal 51% rule for Nvidia's cloud clients, aimed at Chinese firms renting overseas chips, while Nvidia has neither confirmed nor denied it.
Nvidia has told data center partners to reduce their exposure to Chinese customers, the Financial Times reported on November 3.
The reported instruction is not about selling chips to China. It targets cloud companies that buy Nvidia hardware and rent it out, and it limits how much of that rented capacity can go to Chinese buyers.
No company has been named as receiving the instruction, and the report rests on anonymous sources.
Nvidia’s Reported Rule Was Passed On by Staff, Not in Writing
According to AFP, as relayed by Yahoo, Nvidia’s cloud computing clients must sell at least “51 percent of their services” to non-Chinese companies.
The report cites FT and separately says the requirement came from Nvidia’s sales and regional teams and that the company issued no written notice.
AFP adds that the rules apply only to future contracts, not existing agreements.
Neither report names any chip model, any affected cloud company or any government regulation behind the rule, so what exactly is covered remains unclear.
The Rule Targets Renting Chips, Not Buying Them
The reason the rule centres on cloud services comes from how access works.
The decision is expected to hit China’s AI development because more tech firms there rent computing power overseas to reach advanced US chips indirectly.
A cloud client holds the hardware and sells time on it, so a Chinese buyer renting capacity abroad never has to own the chip.
The 51% threshold is a ceiling on that business, not a ban. NogenTech’s own reading is that up to 49% of a cloud client’s services could still go to other buyers, including Chinese ones, if the figures are as reported.
The reports do not say how the share would be measured, whether it applies per contract or across a whole business, or who counts as a Chinese company.
Nvidia Says Nothing on the Rule While Beijing Says It Has Not Seen the Report
Nvidia told AFP neither a yes nor a no, stating that “America cannot win the AI race unless America’s AI infrastructure wins worldwide” and pointing to US policy supporting global deployment on American hardware.
China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said she was unaware of the report, reiterating that Beijing hopes all countries offer companies, Chinese ones included, a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment.
This friction reflects an escalating “AI Cold War” standoff that Beijing has slammed as an American playbook aimed at suppressing China’s technological development.
Both superpowers continue to accuse each other of tech theft and security risks. With the initial report single-sourced to the Financial Times, questions remain over whether Nvidia will confirm the rule and how cloud partners would enforce capacity limits in practice.
Source: Nvidia orders data centre clients to reduce China exposure
