Nvidia reportedly halves its Asia AI chip customer list in a China diversion crackdown

Nvidia has reportedly more than halved the number of authorized customers in Asia allowed to buy its AI chips, according to people familiar with the matter. The company tightened its approval process after ramping up due diligence on buyers in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

The move amounts to a compliance crackdown driven by US pressure over chips being diverted to China. A stricter ‘white list’ now governs who can purchase, and the vetting reportedly includes staff visiting customers’ data centers, verifying contracts and interviewing end users.

Neo-cloud providers, companies that rent GPU compute to third parties, were hit hardest, because reselling capacity makes it harder to track where chips end up and raises diversion risk. Customers removed from the list can reapply once they change how they operate, the people said.

The tightening follows a March case in which US prosecutors charged associates of a Supermicro co-founder with allegedly smuggling about $2.5 billion of Nvidia chips to China, and May 2026 US Commerce Department guidance targeting overseas subsidiaries of Chinese firms. The Commerce Department has separately said it is concerned Nvidia’s Blackwell processors may have reached Chinese-linked entities despite export restrictions.

Nvidia has not confirmed the changes, and the reported customer counts could not be independently verified. The company has argued that export controls cede the global AI market to Chinese rivals without stopping smuggling, and a self-imposed vetting regime lets it show Washington it is policing its channel without waiting for new rules. How aggressively Nvidia enforces the white list, and whether cut-off buyers simply source chips through other intermediaries, will show whether the crackdown curbs diversion or just reshapes it.