Nvidia B300 Servers Sell for $1 Million in China, Nearly Double the US Price
April 30, 2026 – 9:54 am
Prices have surged from roughly 4 million yuan late last year to 7 million yuan ($1 million) today, driven by the Supermicro co-founder’s arrest, tighter enforcement, and voracious demand from Chinese AI companies unwilling to hold restricted hardware on their own books.
NVIDIA’s B300 AI servers are now selling in China for approximately 7 million yuan, roughly $1 million per unit, nearly double their US list price of around $550,000, according to Reuters, which cited four industry sources.
The near-doubling from around 4 million yuan late last year reflects a scarcity premium that has intensified sharply since early 2026, as a crackdown on chip smuggling closed the grey-market supply channel that had been a critical workaround for Chinese companies unable to purchase Nvidia hardware through official channels.
Rental prices for B300 servers in China have also surged alongside sale prices, with short-term contracts reportedly reaching as high as 190,000 yuan per month, a figure that underlines the extremity of compute scarcity.
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Chinese technology companies are scrambling for the hardware needed to monetise their AI models and compete on inference efficiency, the cost of generating tokens, the basic unit of AI text output, as commercial AI deployment accelerates. Many are deliberately structuring arrangements to avoid holding Nvidia hardware directly on their balance sheets, fearing exposure to US sanctions.
The Supermicro bust that choked the grey market
The inflection point in the price surge traces directly to the arrest of Yih-Shyan ‘Wally’ Liaw, co-founder of Supermicro, on 19 March 2026. US federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment alleging that Liaw, Supermicro’s Taiwan general manager Ruei-Tsang Chang, and contractor Ting-Wei Sun conspired to divert roughly $2.5 billion in Supermicro servers, containing Nvidia’s export-controlled Blackwell-class AI chips, to Chinese buyers via a Southeast Asian pass-through company.
The scheme involved swapping serial numbers using heat guns, fabricating paperwork, and using fake replica servers to deceive government auditors. Liaw and Sun subsequently pleaded not guilty; Chang remains a fugitive.
Supermicro’s shares fell 33% on the day the indictment was unsealed, erasing more than $6 billion in market capitalisation. Liaw resigned from the board immediately.
The prosecution is the highest-profile enforcement action yet under the AI chip export control regime the US has been tightening since 2022, and its effect on grey market supply appears to have been immediate: the arrest signalled to the broader network of brokers, logistics companies, and intermediaries that the enforcement risk had materially increased, sharply reducing the volume of hardware being diverted through unofficial channels.
NVIDIA has publicly distanced itself from the grey market supply chain, stating that the B300 is restricted from sale in China and that partners must comply strictly with export rules.