From the description:
NVIDIA (NVDA) GPUs have become so in-demand for so-called "AI" workloads that a black market has emerged around them. Where there's prohibition, there's smuggling, and there's money to be made for everyone in the chain. We found smugglers, users, fences, middlemen, and institutions in China, Taiwan, and the US involved in this pipeline flowing export controlled GPUs to China. This is in violation of US Government law, which now includes imposed numerous restrictions on semiconductor processing capabilities, making legitimate export of high-end GPUs to Chinese companies or governments impossible without rarely-granted licenses. But while this is going on, the US Government, NVIDIA, and AMD have been negotiating a cut of sales of two specific models of GPU in order to unblock over $6 billion in combined lost revenue between the companies.
We also spoke with a factory about how they make GPUs for Yeston. Yeston is not involved in the black market and doesn't even make the high-end GPUs that are banned, but it gives us important insight as to how video cards are made and what the process is. The process is the same for all cards, and this means we can show a factory without issues from NVIDIA for a brand which makes high-end NVIDIA GPUs.
Here is a summary of the key points :
0:00 - Introduction to the black market for high-end Nvidia AI GPUs, which are in high demand but restricted from export to China.
4:16 - Exploring the GPU black market in Hong Kong, where middlemen connect buyers and sellers.
8:03 - Visiting a university in Hong Kong that has legally obtained GPUs, but faces challenges in scaling up due to export restrictions.
11:37 - Explaining the timeline and reasons behind the US government's export controls on advanced Nvidia GPUs.
14:56 - Detailing the complex and ever-changing export control rules, including the recent 15% revenue share deal between Nvidia/AMD and the US government.
18:55 - Visiting a GPU repair shop in Junjo that modifies and rebuilds banned GPUs to increase their memory capacity.
25:49 - Exploring the GPU warehouses in Shenzhen and how the banned GPUs may be making their way into China.
32:17 - Interviewing a GPU smuggler in the US who buys GPUs and resells them to buyers in China.
36:11 - Examining Nvidia's role in the black market and its apparent attempts to downplay or deny the existence of GPU smuggling.
46:11 - Concluding the investigation and summarizing the various methods used to smuggle banned Nvidia GPUs into China.