Lava detects 32 export-restricted Nvidia B300 chips in China Telecom network
The Israeli firm found the processors using standard monitoring software, a discovery that follows recent indictments for illegal GPU exports to China.
By Julian Kobayashi ·
Israeli security firm Lava identified 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 chips running inside the network of China Telecom, a state-owned telecommunications provider. The discovery, first reported by The Information, indicates that hardware barred from the country by U.S. export controls is currently active in a Chinese data center.
Under current regulations, this class of chip may only be sold to whitelisted buyers who agree not to resell to sanctioned parties, including those in China. Enforcement has been difficult, with a 2025 report citing $1 billion in smuggled Nvidia AI chips over a three-month period. While B200 processors were the primary target then, distributors were already preparing for B300-series parts.
Lava detected the chips using Nvidia’s DCGM Exporter, a tool intended for internal server health monitoring. The software is often accessible from outside the data center network and does not always require a password. Lava did not disclose the specific location of the chips within the China Telecom infrastructure.
Nvidia did not dispute the findings but minimized their impact. A company spokesperson told Tom's Hardware that recent court cases show an "insignificant diversion of controlled US products, less than one half of one percent." The spokesperson stated that with tens of millions of GPUs in service, smuggling is a nonfactor blocked by governments on both sides.
The B300 offers 50% more memory and FP4 compute than the B200. Nvidia announced the GPU in March 2025 and described it as built for the age of reasoning, citing advanced large language models like DeepSeek R1. The chip became highly sought after upon its release.
Enforcement efforts have intensified recently. In August 2026, nine individuals were indicted in Taiwan for illegally exporting B300 GPUs to China. These indictments followed Supermicro’s confirmation that it fired several employees after an investigation into smuggling. The scheme involved Flying Tiget Tech, a Taiwanese server trading firm with whitelisted status for GPU purchases.
Market demand for Nvidia silicon continues to drive up prices. Servers built on the five-year-old A100 have tripled in cost. Some buyers have reportedly retooled gaming GPUs to run AI workloads amid the ongoing crackdown on smuggling.
Source: Tom's Hardware
