How a Chinese AI company worked around U.S. rules to access Nvidia’s top chips

In Indonesia, semiconductors covered by U.S. export controls are ready to help a Shanghai-based group

- Liza Lin & Stu Woo

Indonesian telecom provider Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison sells computing power from a data center in Jakarta.

President Trump made clear earlier this month that he doesn’t want Nvidia selling its most advanced artificial-intelligence chips to China.

But inside a tall, windowless building in Indonesia’s capital, about 2,300 of those chips are ready to do work for a Chinese AI company.

A Wall Street Journal investigation traced how a chain of deals across several countries got the chips inside the data center, which is wedged between a private school and an upscale apartment complex. A company that arranged the transaction is a subsidiary of a Chinese business on an American trade blacklist.

Despite American rules intended to stop China from accessing the tech industry's most coveted hardware, there is no evidence to suggest the deals violated U.S. law.

Some former and current U.S. national-security officials say the U.S. should review deals such as the Jakarta one. Nvidia and other tech companies argue for fewer export controls, saying it is better to have the rest of the world hooked on American technology and financing American innovation.

The U.S. and China are in an arms race over AI, which can deliver military and economic advantages. America’s edge is that the world’s top AI chip company, Nvidia, is based in California. Since 2022, China has been barred from buying the most advanced U.S. semiconductors over national-security concerns.

Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, recently said Nvidia’s market share in China has fallen to zero from 95% owing to U.S. export restrictions. But Chinese companies and organizations still use Nvidia products.