Lava Detects 32 Nvidia B300 Chips Inside China Telecom Network

Israeli security firm Lava says it identified 32 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra B300 processors operating inside China Telecom's network, a finding first reported by The Information. The chips are barred from sale to Chinese buyers under current U.S. export rules, which permit transfers only to whitelisted purchasers who agree not to resell to sanctioned parties.

Nvidia did not contest the detection. A spokesperson said governments, researchers and media have found "insignificant diversion of controlled US products, less than one half of one percent in recent court cases, a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of domestic compute China already has." The spokesperson added that with tens of millions of GPUs in service in approved countries, the report "demonstrates that smuggling is a nonfactor, blocked by governments on both sides of the globe."

Lava located the processors using Nvidia's DCGM Exporter, software data center operators install to monitor server health. The tool is designed for internal use but can often be reached from outside the data center's network and does not always require a password. Nvidia has said it is developing software that can locate its chips, but that tool has not shipped. Lava could not determine how the processors reached China Telecom or where in the company's network they sit.

Nvidia announced the B300 in March 2025 with 50% more memory and FP4 compute than the preceding B200, and the company described it as "built for the age of reasoning." The chip began shipping by the end of 2025. Under current rules, this class of hardware may be sold only to whitelisted buyers bound not to transfer it to sanctioned parties. A 2025 report said Chinese companies smuggled $1 billion worth of Nvidia AI chips over three months, with B200 processors the most in demand at that point.

Enforcement has followed. In August 2026, nine people were indicted in Taiwan over illegal exports of B300 GPUs to China, days after Supermicro confirmed it had fired several employees following a smuggling investigation. The scheme involved Flying Tiget Tech, a Taiwanese server trading firm that held whitelisted status for GPU purchases.

Demand for Nvidia hardware has pushed up prices across the market. Servers built around the five-year-old A100 have tripled in cost, and some buyers have retooled gaming GPUs to run AI workloads.