Prices of Nvidia Corp.’s B300 AI servers in China have surged to about 7 million
yuan ($1 million), nearly doubling from around 4 million yuan late last year, as
a crackdown on chip smuggling curtailed grey-market supply, according to
industry sources. The servers, priced about $550,000 in the US, face a scarcity
premium amid tighter export curbs. Demand from Chinese tech firms remains
strong, with some avoiding direct ownership due to sanctions risks and turning
to rentals costing up to 190,000 yuan per month. The B300, featuring eight GPUs
with 288GB memory and 14 petaFLOPS performance, is among the most powerful for
AI inference. Delays in H200 shipments and rising AI usage—China’s share of
global token usage reached 32% in March, per Morgan Stanley—have further driven
demand, while rivals including Huawei seek to gain share.
