As U.S. export bans block Nvidia from selling its most advanced AI chips to China, a surprising secondary industry is booming: repair services for black-market Nvidia GPUs.
According to tech firms in Shenzhen, demand has surged for the repair of high-end Nvidia chips like the H100 and A100, GPUs that were never legally sold in China but have nevertheless found their way into the country, often through smuggling, News.Az reports, citing Reuters.
“There is really significant repair demand,” said the co-owner of a Shenzhen-based company that pivoted from gaming GPU repairs to AI chip servicing in late 2024.
The repair boom underscores how Nvidia’s GPUs remain indispensable to China’s AI sector, especially for training large language models, despite domestic alternatives like Huawei’s new H20 chips.
The U.S. banned the export of Nvidia’s A100 and H100 chips to China in 2022, fearing they could boost the Chinese military’s AI capabilities. Yet sources and government tenders suggest that China’s military and government-linked entities have acquired them regardless.
One repair firm now services up to 500 AI GPUs a month, operating test environments with 256-server capacity to simulate data center conditions and validate repairs.
Another company, which formerly rented GPUs, says it repairs around 200 AI chips monthly, charging about 10% of the GPU’s original price per repair, roughly ¥10,000 to ¥20,000 ($1,400–$2,800) depending on complexity.
Services typically include:
GPU memory fault diagnostics
PCB and fan repair
Replacement of damaged components
Software testing and recalibration
In response to growing reports of smuggling, U.S. lawmakers from both parties have proposed legislation requiring chipset tracking post-sale. Former President Donald Trump’s administration has backed the move, warning that unmonitored exports undermine U.S. security.
An Nvidia spokesperson stated that only Nvidia and its authorized partners are permitted to offer proper support, adding:
“Using restricted products without approved hardware, software, and technical support is a nonstarter, both technically and economically.”
Many of the smuggled GPUs have been running around the clock for years, leading to high failure rates. Industry insiders estimate that a typical Nvidia AI GPU lasts 2 to 5 years under heavy workloads, and most units in China are reaching that threshold.
Meanwhile, even legally permitted alternatives like the H20 chipset are not a perfect substitute. A single H20-powered server with eight GPUs can cost over ¥1 million ($139,400), too costly for many smaller players, and H100 remains the preferred choice for training AI models.
With new chips like the B200 now being smuggled in and fetching over ¥3 million ($418,000) per server, experts expect the underground repair business to keep growing.
As China races to stay competitive in AI and chip shortages persist, the grey market for Nvidia GPUs, and their repair, is becoming a cornerstone of the country’s shadow tech economy.
