Chinese universities with military ties bought Supermicro servers with restricted Nvidia A100 chips

Four Chinese universities bought or sought Supermicro server systems containing restricted Nvidia A100 AI chips in the past year; two of those universities have links to the PLA.

Beihang University procured a Supermicro-based machine-learning workstation with four A100s (Reuters, Mar 16); Harbin Institute of Technology bought a Supermicro server with eight A100s (July tender).

Both Beihang University and Harbin Institute of Technology are listed on the U.S. Entity List.

U.S. officials have previously said Beihang was placed on the Entity List for involvement in military rocket and unmanned air vehicle systems; BIS said HIT and several subsidiaries were added for using U.S. technology to support the PLA, including missile programs.

Separately, reports in April 2024 said 10 Chinese entities acquired restricted Nvidia chips by buying servers from Supermicro, Dell, and Gigabyte via resellers; BIS expanded 2023 measures to curb circumvention, and in October 2024 DOJ unsealed an indictment charging co‑founder Yih‑Shyan Liaw and two others with conspiring to divert high‑performance U.S. AI servers to China.