Report: Inspur's U.S. Subsidiary Exported Billions in Nvidia-Equipped Servers to Southeast Asia
The New York Times reported that Aivres, whose parent is on the Entity List but which is not itself listed, shipped at least $5.6 billion in technology, including more than $3 billion in Blackwell-equipped computers.
The New York Times reported on September 6 that Aivres, the California-based subsidiary of Chinese server maker Inspur Group, exported at least $5.6 billion in advanced technology to Southeast Asia between April 2024 and February 2026. More than $3 billion of that was computers equipped with Nvidia’s most advanced Blackwell chips. The servers ultimately served Chinese customers including ByteDance and Alibaba, according to the reporting.
The corporate structure
The U.S. Commerce Department added Inspur Group to the Entity List in March 2023, citing support for China’s military modernization. Aivres, Inspur’s U.S. subsidiary, does not appear on the list. Reporting indicates that Inspur Systems became Aivres Systems two months after the listing.
The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2025 that Inspur held a 33 percent stake in Aivres. That is below the 50 percent threshold in the Affiliates Rule, which is how the subsidiary falls outside the restrictions applied to its parent. Because Aivres is a separately incorporated U.S. company, it could purchase American technology that Inspur itself could not.
How the equipment reached Chinese users
The servers were shipped to Southeast Asia, where electronics trade is high-volume, and then reached Chinese buyers through intermediaries. Other coverage gives a specific example: Aivres sold 32 Nvidia GB200 server racks, about 2,300 Blackwell GPUs, to Indonesian telecom operator Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison in a deal reportedly worth about $100 million. A Shanghai AI startup, INF Tech, reportedly rented computing time on the machines in Jakarta.
That arrangement relies on what is often called the cloud or remote-access gap. U.S. export rules focus mainly on where the physical chips are shipped, not on who rents access to the computing power. In the reported example, the chips never crossed China’s border.
Responses and pending measures
Nvidia said it does not support product diversion and sells only to well-known partners that work with it to ensure sales comply with U.S. export control rules. As of mid-September, according to aggregated coverage, Inspur, Aivres, and the Commerce Department had not issued detailed public responses to the Times’ findings.
The Remote Access Security Act, which aims to close the remote-access gap, passed the House 369–22 in January 2026. Separately, Nvidia and AMD are reportedly lobbying the administration against potential new China-related chip restrictions, including in the annual defense policy bill. Asia Times reported that the issue has complicated preparations for U.S.–China summit talks.
Analysts quoted in coverage say that screening by beneficial ownership, rather than by company name, would address the gap more directly than adding individual subsidiaries to the list.
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