American giant NVIDIA has taken unprecedented measures to control the supply of its AI accelerators in Asia. The company has removed more than half of its approved clients from its so-called "white list," tightening end-user verification procedures. This decision is a direct response to pressure from Washington and an attempt to cut off channels through which advanced chips, including the Blackwell line, are leaking into China.
Mass Purge: Who Was Left Behind?
The "white list" is a closed registry of verified buyers authorized to purchase NVIDIA products directly. After months of audits in Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan—key transit hubs for shipments to Asia—the composition of this list has been radically revised. Small cloud services and distributors that failed to meet enhanced compliance requirements were most frequently removed. However, excluded companies can review their internal procedures and reapply.
Washington's Pressure and the Black Market
NVIDIA's decision is driven not by commercial logic but by geopolitics. The United States has repeatedly stated that Chinese entities obtain sanctioned processors through intermediaries in Southeast Asia. The U.S. Department of Commerce has specifically regulated shipments to foreign subsidiaries linked to Chinese companies. The scale of the problem is well-documented: carriers and participants in transit schemes have shipped substantial batches of chips to China, which then ended up on the black market at inflated prices. These chains involved long supply chains and major server manufacturers.
Consequences for the AI Market
Nvidia is walking a tightrope: the company heavily depends on global demand for its AI accelerators, and the Asian market remains critically important. By reducing the number of buyers, the company is sacrificing some revenue to protect legal markets and avoid sanctions for violating U.S. export rules. The decision will impact the market unevenly: for small cloud services, restrictions will become a problem immediately, while large companies are likely to retain access to NVIDIA products.
Experts see more serious structural consequences in what is happening. The mass exclusion of clients could slow the development of advanced AI infrastructure for everyone except the largest providers. Companies that have proven they have no ties to end consumers in China come out ahead: transparent compliance is becoming a competitive advantage.
China, for its part, continues on its own path. It was previously reported that DeepSeek is developing its own AI inference chip to reduce dependence on NVIDIA and Huawei solutions. The project is still in its early stages, but this approach shows how export restrictions are driving the development of domestic alternatives.
My expert opinion: This decision is a classic example of national security trumping market efficiency. NVIDIA is forced to "shoot itself in the foot," cutting potential revenue to maintain access to the key U.S. market. In the long term, this will only accelerate the fragmentation of the global AI chip market and spur Chinese players to create their own, albeit less powerful, alternatives.