Estimates how much frontier compute China holds despite export controls, which affects assumptions about open weightsA model whose trained parameters are published for anyone to download and run — unlike API-only models you can access but never possess.Full definition → model capability and where future models can come from.
Key takeaways · AI-distilled
Allegations of diverted or missing chips total nearly 300,000 H100e by end-2025, a quarter of China's estimated legally imported or domestic compute. Most are unproven in court, but Epoch expects the true total is higher since much smuggling goes undetected.
Epoch estimates 290,000 to 1.6 million H100e (90% CI) were smuggled to China through 2025. Its 660,000 median is roughly 3% of the global compute stockpile, comparable to xAI's holdings then; the upper bound implies most of China's AI compute was smuggled.
Epoch says an April 2025 licensing requirement on Nvidia's H20, a chip made to comply with earlier export controls, further restricted exports and incentivized smuggling. The Financial Times reported over $1 billion in AI chips were smuggled April-July.
The DOJ indicted Supermicro employees, alleging they diverted $2.5 billion in Nvidia chips to a pass-through entity that redirected the servers to China; the indictment explicitly says $510 million in servers reached China and suggests at least half did.
Epoch says it is uncertain about many variables, notably the scale of undetected smuggling and the share of allegedly diverted or missing chips that ultimately reached China.
Terms in this piece · Glossary
open weights — A model whose trained parameters are published for anyone to download and run — unlike API-only models you can access but never possess.
