Huawei tells customers to find their own AI chip memory, effectively outsourcing procurement to the black market

Huawei is telling some customers to source memory for its AI chips themselves, effectively pushing buyers onto the black market, The Information reports, as Chinese suppliers cannot produce enough High-Bandwidth Memory and U.S. export rules block direct purchases from Samsung and SK Hynix. Smugglers bundle HBM with cheap server processors below the export threshold and ship them through Hong Kong, where workshops separate the chips, with smuggled HBM3E prices rising from a few hundred dollars to around $4,000 per unit in a year, according to a Shenzhen broker. South Korea's customs authority had uncovered trade violations worth $560 million by May, already surpassing the previous full-year record, a third involving strategic goods like chips.