Security Firm Discovers 32 NVIDIA B300 GPUs Operating Inside China Telecom, Showing U.S. Export Controls Aren’t Curbing Top-Tier AI Hardware From Getting Out - Wccftech

The chips were detected by the Israeli security firm Lava, which used NVIDIA’s Data Center GPU Manager (DCGM) Exporter tool to remotely identify the restricted processors. This software is normally installed by operators for internal server health diagnostics, but it was found accessible over the open internet without password protection.

While the tool confirmed the existence of the 32 B300 units, their exact physical location within China Telecom’s vast infrastructure could not be determined. The B300 is a highly advanced AI accelerator featuring 288GB of HBM3E memory and a massive 8,192-bit memory interface, making it the most powerful AI architecture currently available.

Smuggling and U.S. Controls

Under current U.S. export policies, vendors are only permitted to sell B300 GPUs to whitelisted customers who agree to prevent their diversion to embargoed parties. Despite these trade barriers, illicit networks continue to move cutting-edge hardware into Chinese data centers, with state-backed institutions like China Telecom being a likely target.

A company spokesperson told Tom’s Hardware that diverted U.S. products make up less than 0.5 percent of deployed inventory. The official noted that the discovery of these 32 units is not a major concern for the company.

Next Steps

The report raises questions about the effectiveness of current enforcement mechanisms and the potential for more of these advanced chips to be found in other state-backed institutions. The next step for regulators and security agencies will be to investigate how these restricted units were acquired and distributed.