Bloomberg traces banned Nvidia chips to Shanghai data center linked to Alice Huang; Dell and Supermicro servers implicated
What happened
Bloomberg reported on Friday, Nov 13, that documents it reviewed trace smuggled Nvidia AI chips to a Shanghai data center linked to Alice Huang, the woman at the center of the scandal that forced Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation on Nov 12. According to the report, Aperia Cloud Services — a Singapore-based official Nvidia Cloud Partner — purchased 22 servers from Dell containing Nvidia H800 chips, which are banned for sale to China. The hardware ended up with Shanghai Longteng Intelligent Computing, a company Alice Huang founded about a decade ago (her sister Huang Yu later took over as majority owner), and was installed at the Yangtze River Delta Project, a Shanghai AI facility with ties to Alice Huang's company Megaspeed. Filings show a Longteng subsidiary pledged 193 servers as loan collateral in January 2025, valued at about $73 million (485 million yuan), including the 22 Dell H800 servers plus 52 Super Micro units equipped with restricted Nvidia H100 or H200 chips and 119 Gigabyte units. Bloomberg noted the filings do not specify how the chips were obtained or whether Alice Huang was personally involved in the procurement, and she has not been part of Longteng since 2017. Nvidia declined to comment on the report; Supermicro said it sold the identified servers in line with US export rules; Aperia has denied wrongdoing. Separately, Fortune reported Nov 12 that the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan is investigating whether Huang-linked entities took part in alleged efforts to move Supermicro hardware containing Nvidia GPUs into China, and Singapore's police and customs authorities have opened investigations into Megaspeed and Alice Huang.
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- Nvidia (NVDA) — direct; documentary evidence of its restricted chips installed in China deepens the export-control and governance crisis days before its Nov 17 earnings; shares fell 2% Friday to $162.85, down 13% on the week
- Dell (DELL) — newly implicated; 22 Dell servers containing banned H800 chips were the diverted hardware, sold to Singapore's Aperia Cloud Services. Dell said it stopped all sales and support to Aperia in February 2025 over diversion concerns; shares fell 7.2% Friday
- Super Micro Computer (SMCI) — newly implicated; 52 Supermicro units with restricted H100/H200 chips were in the Shanghai filings, and the Manhattan US Attorney is investigating whether Huang-linked entities moved Supermicro hardware with Nvidia GPUs into China. Supermicro said it sold the identified servers in line with US export rules and denied any connection to the data center
- Semiconductor sector — the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.43% Friday (6% intraday per Reuters), with AMD down about 10% and Broadcom about 7%; the report keeps export-control risk hanging over the whole AI hardware trade
- Hyperscalers / AI infrastructure (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, CoreWeave, Nebius) — Nvidia is their core AI supplier; supply-chain and compliance scrutiny adds uncertainty to AI buildout timelines; CoreWeave fell 6% and Nebius 10% Friday