Chinese tech giants order $5B Nvidia chips amid US bans — report

China's internet giants are rushing to acquire high-performance Nvidia chips vital for building generative artificial intelligence systems, making orders worth $5 billion, the Financial Times has reported.

Baidu, TikTok-owner ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have made orders worth $1 billion to acquire about 100,000 A800 processors from the US chipmaker to be delivered this year, the FT reported on Wednesday, citing multiple people familiar with the matter.

The Chinese groups had also purchased a further $4 billion worth of graphics processing units to be delivered in 2024, according to the report.

Nvidia offers the A800 processor in China to meet export control rules after US officials asked the company late last year to stop exporting its two top computing chips to the country for AI-related work.

The FT report comes as President Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order that would narrowly prohibit certain US investments in sensitive technology in China and require government notification of funding in other tech sectors.

Nvidia, Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.