Nvidia Tells Cloud Partners to Limit Chinese Customers

Nvidia is pushing the cloud companies that rent out its AI chips to cut their reliance on Chinese customers. Its data-centre partners must now sell at least 51% of their services to non-Chinese companies, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing five people with knowledge of the matter, according to AFP's report of the story.

The requirement applies to new contracts, not existing leasing agreements, the report said. The Next Web, summarising the FT, says the instruction was given verbally through Nvidia's sales force and regional teams rather than in writing, and that Nvidia had not imposed such a limit before. Digital Watch reports that it applies to Nvidia's partners globally.

What Nvidia says

Nvidia neither confirmed nor denied the report when AFP asked. In a statement, it said that "datacenters and clouds built on American chips are the foundation that American model and application makers need to compete worldwide", and that "longstanding U.S. policy encourages every cloud to build on American infrastructure and to win business everywhere they can."

"America cannot win the AI race unless America's AI infrastructure wins worldwide," the statement added. "If the world's clouds rely on foreign-made chips, the model and application layers will be foreign-built as well."

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The loophole it targets

The United States has limited sales of Nvidia's most advanced chips to China since 2022. Many Chinese AI developers have worked around that by renting computing power from cloud providers outside China; Digital Watch notes that companies such as Tencent leased overseas capacity in regions like Southeast Asia to reach Nvidia's top chips indirectly. A cap on Chinese business narrows that route.

It may also be hard for some providers to meet. Digital Watch reports that cloud companies outside the United States have said they lack enough non-Chinese clients to comply with stricter requirements, which could force some to shrink their operations.

Asked about the report, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said she was not aware of it. "As a matter of principle, we consistently hope that all parties can provide a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment for companies from all countries, including Chinese companies," she said.

Why it matters in Africa

Nvidia's chips also power AI capacity being built on the continent. Cassava Technologies' AI Factory, announced in March 2025, lined up Nvidia hardware for data centres in South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria. The FT report did not name any partners, and it is not yet clear how the rule would be applied to smaller markets. For African operators selling GPU time, the signal is plain: who the customers are now matters to the supplier as much as how many chips they buy.