NVIDIA Tightens Asia Chip Sales: New Whitelist Cuts Approved Buyers by More Than Half to Block China Diversion

How is NVIDIA tightening Asia sales? What does the whitelist involve and how wide is its reach?

NVIDIA has moved to sharply narrow who in Asia can buy its AI chips. According to a Bloomberg report carried by TechNews, NVIDIA has "cut the list of customers eligible to buy AI chips by more than half" and shifted to a new whitelist system that "only allows companies that pass stricter compliance review to place orders, in order to prevent chips from flowing to China" (E1).

A separate Financial Times report, relayed by Liberty Times (自由時報), corroborates the scale of the change: NVIDIA "has established a new corporate whitelist, allowing only companies that pass stricter review to purchase its AI chips," a move that "caused the number of Asian customers approved to buy AI chips to fall by at least 50%" (E6). The same report states that after the new round of screening, "more than half of NVIDIA's existing customers were excluded, particularly emerging neo-cloud providers," though companies that fail the first review "can reapply after completing relevant improvements" (E8).

How rigorous is the whitelist review? Which countries and agencies are involved?

The screening is not merely paperwork. Financial Times sources describe an intensified due-diligence process. Per Liberty Times' account of the Financial Times report, three sources said that "over the past several months, NVIDIA has stepped up due diligence in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan" (E7).

The mechanics go further than desk review: "NVIDIA staff will conduct on-site inspections at customer data centers, verify contract terms, and interview end users to confirm that the relevant enterprises are engaged in legitimate business," and one source said "the U.S. Commerce Department is also involved in this process, providing oversight and policy support" (E9).

How has U.S. export policy on NVIDIA chips evolved?

Washington's posture has shifted more than once. According to TechNews' account, "the U.S. government has tightened export rules for NVIDIA products such as the H20," and "subsequently relaxed some H200 exports for a period," while China "similarly used administrative guidance and procurement restrictions to reduce Chinese companies' reliance on NVIDIA chips" (E3).

That back-and-forth was followed by a more targeted directive. The Commerce Department "issued guidance this May aimed at preventing advanced AI chips from flowing to overseas subsidiaries of Chinese companies," with officials stating outright that they were "concerned that NVIDIA's most advanced Blackwell processors could be exported through countries such as Malaysia to entities linked to China" (E10).

How has China evaded chip restrictions before, and what is the U.S. doing about it?

The whitelist push follows a documented pattern of circumvention. Per TechNews, "China has previously used cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia to evade U.S. restrictions on high-end AI chip exports" (E2). The Commerce Department's May guidance (E10) directly targets this channel — routing chips through overseas subsidiaries and third countries — which is the same exposure NVIDIA's new on-site verification regime (E9) is designed to close.

What does NVIDIA's China business shift reflect?

Against this backdrop, NVIDIA's own China numbers have collapsed. Founder Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said in May that NVIDIA's "China market share had fallen to zero" (E4). At the same time, the company has been reallocating manufacturing resources: NVIDIA "has shifted part of its TSMC (台積電) capacity from H200 to the next-generation Vera Rubin chip, in response to delays in H200 export approvals and uncertainty over potential Chinese restrictions" (E5).

What this means

The figures from both reports point the same direction: TechNews' "more than half" reduction in the approved buyer list (E1) and Liberty Times' "at least 50%" drop in approved Asian customers (E6) describe the same tightening from two separate outlets. That contraction lines up chronologically with the Commerce Department's May guidance naming Malaysia as a specific risk point for Blackwell diversion (E10) — the same country where NVIDIA has since stepped up due diligence (E7) and now conducts on-site data-center audits (E9). Read together with Huang's statement that China share is already at zero (E4) and NVIDIA's capacity shift toward Vera Rubin (E5), the whitelist appears to be closing off the Southeast Asian routes that TechNews' sourcing says China had previously used to obtain restricted chips (E2), even as the U.S. government's own rules on H20 and H200 have swung between tightening and partial relaxation (E3).