Nvidia Blackwell Chips Reach China’s Tencent Via Japanese Cloud Service: Report

• Datasection, a Japanese cloud provider, announced a deal to buy Nvidia’s Blackwell chips to use in its data centers in Japan and Australia, according to the report.
• Tencent is a client for those data centers, Barron’s said, citing a person familiar with the matter.
• Datasection’s chief executive officer, Norihiko Ishihara, reportedly declined to confirm the allegations.

China’s Tencent Holdings reportedly has access to Nvidia’s (NVDA) Blackwell chips through Datasection, a Tokyo-based cloud service provider.

According to a Barron’s report, Datasection has announced a deal to buy Nvidia’s Blackwell chips to use in its data centers in Japan and Australia. Tencent is a client for those data centers, said the report, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Nvidia’s Blackwell chips are banned in China. “I don’t say yes; I don’t say no,” said Datasection’s chief executive officer, Norihiko Ishihara.

“By design, the export rules allow clouds to be built and operated outside controlled countries by approved firms,” said a Nvidia spokesperson. “Winning the business of those clouds is critical to maintain American technology leadership and promotes both national and economic security.”

Loophole Exploitation

President Donald Trump has banned the export of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips to China to maintain a competitive advantage in the AI race.

According to the report from Barron’s, Datasection announced deals for 15,000 Nvidia Blackwell graphical processing units, or GPUs, for use in data centers in Osaka and Sydney, adding that they would be used by “one of the world’s largest cloud-service providers.” Tencent was identified as the customer after a person familiar with the matter learned of the connection from business interactions in Japan, the report said.

Leveraging cloud services to access Blackwell chips does not violate the U.S. export ban, which prohibits Chinese companies from owning those chips. This is a loophole that can be exploited and has been flagged by members of Congress.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump relaxed export rules, announcing that the U.S. would allow Nvidia’s H200 chips, an older version, to be exported to select buyers in China and other countries. However, Blackwell chips are still prohibited from export to China.

Tencent’s reported use of Nvidia’s advanced chips is the second instance of a Chinese company trying to gain access to Blackwell chips. The Information reported earlier this month that China’s DeepSeek had deployed the Blackwell chips to develop an upcoming AI model. Nvidia denied the claim.

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around NVDA remained in the ‘bearish’ territory over the past 24 hours, while message volume stayed at ‘low’ levels at the time of writing.

Shares of Nvidia were up about 3.8% at the time of writing. NVDA shares have gained over 38% in the last year.

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