THE NVIDIA AI GPU BLACK MARKET:
SMUGGLING, ARRESTS, & HIGH-TECH CRIME
The United States Government has imposed export controls and restrictions on high-end GPUs that could be used for “AI” tasks and military simulations, restricting the sale of these GPUs by US entities to China. People have been arrested for smuggling GPUs out of the United States, but no one has gotten the middlemen and smugglers to go on-record and on-camera with the users of these GPUs. We embedded in Asia for 3 weeks to talk on-camera with smugglers, suppliers, middlemen, users, and innovative repair shops building their own high-end video cards with parts from NVIDIA’s defective products, all fueling what the US Government considers to be a “black market” of GPUs. In GN’s world-first story, we learn directly from those making this market tick and how cards get into China and past US export controls. Now, we need your help to produce this documentary to the highest possible quality levels, so we’ve introduced backer rewards to fund our effort and get you high-quality items in return.
UPDATE: DUE TO EXTREMELY HIGH ORDER VOLUME, WE ARE IN WAVE 2: New orders placed for BACKER ITEMS relating to the Black Market documentary will ship from October 15 to November 30.
Backer Rewards feature bundle packs of GamersNexus store items and exclusive digital content that will only be available to backers of our THE NVIDIA AI GPU BLACK MARKET documentary. Exclusive items in various tiers include: A bonus Q&A small group livestream (of only “The Kingpin” backers) with Steve, split into small groups to maximize time with everyone; bonus videos with the production team and research team; wallpaper packs for devices; an exclusive canvas print of a watercolor painting done by Steve’s mom, showing the Hong Kong city skyline of a photo Steve took on the trip; additional T-shirts, pint glasses, and other physical items; and in one tier, a credit in the rendered video itself (if purchased before AUGUST 14 AT 11:59 PM ET).
Each physical item is available separately, with the exception of the canvas print (which is only available in “The Kingpin” tier) and the KPX K|NGP|N thermal paste (only available in the bundle), but bonus videos, the live Q&A with Steve, credit in the video, and other digital rewards are only available in the various backer tiers.
ENOUGH “SOURCES SAY” BULLSHIT: ON RECORD
Every big publication has anonymous “sources” who say things. We worked directly with the experts on camera.
FUNDING GOALs
The graphic will be updated at least once per day.
[DELIVERED] $10,000: Publish full GPU control timeline free of third-party ads on the website
$20,000: Edit & Release unpublished Hong Kong market footage in upcoming video focused on PC hardware culture and markets in Asia
[DELIVERED] $30,000: Add high-quality cityscape drone shots, animations, and increase music licensing budget for the documentary
$40,000: Edit & Release FULL 48GB GPU MODIFICATION VIDEO
[DELIVERED] $50,000: Release the documentary without any directly sold computer hardware ads (only GN store ads and YouTube AdSense ads)
$60,000: Edit and polish the research document and release a short version of the most critical points on the website, free of third-party ads
$80,000: Create written article version of the full documentary (free of third-party ads)
STRETCH GOALS
$150,000: Physically drive to the US State Department and US Commerce Department to seek answers (and probably promptly get turned away), as neither has responded to emails
$200,000: Distribute digital backer rewards on physical USB keys that can be reused later. Drive to Microcenter, make a video of driving Microcenter and buying all the USB sticks, load the digital content for tiers onto them, and also load an exclusive photo of Snowflake only available via the USB sticks
SUPER STRETCH GOALS
$225,000: A full feature, separate video seeking interviews with lawmakers and elected officials about this topic. We adjust the plan for the $150,000 stretch goal. Now, instead of simply driving to Washington DC and likely being turned away, we will actively seek out interview bookings by emailing Senators, Congresspeople, Representatives, and other elected officials until we find people who will speak with us. Instead of becoming a smaller video upload where we likely just get ignored (similar to how our emails to the Secretary of State & Commerce Department were ignored), we now will aim to arrange at least one, but hopefully a few, interviews with elected officials to discuss this topic. This will be a separate, full feature upload once arranged. We cannot put a firm date on it yet as it would depend upon the schedule of the officials who agree. This would still include physically driving to Washington, DC or other government building locations for interviews. This would be uploaded publicly to the GNCA YouTube channel.
$250,000: We film a separate publicly available upload for the GN channel where we build a high-end, I/O-specialized PC (likely with help from Wendell at Level1 Techs) and figure out how to load all the USB keys that we are sending to ALL BACKERS with Digital Rewards. The video would be a fun PC build project where we get to do some problem-solving for the most efficient way to 'burn' the files to USB keys. This adjusts the plan for the $200,000 stretch goal and uploads to the GN channel within a few months.
$300,000: For ALL BACKERS with Digital Rewards, your own high-quality, digital copy of our finalized movie loaded onto the USB sticks that will be yours to preserve in the event our movie is ever taken offline. Usual Copyright laws apply (do not redistribute/reupload our footage or re-use it for profit -- unless we're taken offline, then go for it); however, this would be your copy and would also allow you to watch it without any AdSense ads on your own offline devices in the future.
$400,000: WE GO BACK TO CHINA to produce a feature-length, educational series exploring factories, including showing the start-to-finish design and production process for a popular computer component (separate from other factory tours we have coming up). This would feature interviews with people like designers, manufacturing engineers, and product managers to unveil never-before-revealed details about production cost. We will work with a hardware company to thoroughly document the behind-the-scenes design and making, including the challenges, of a new product. This would be an unfiltered, independent educational look at the process. These kinds of videos are typically difficult to fund due to the educational focus of them; however, they bring important insights that are not only interesting for enthusiasts, but useful for those who may want to work in similar industries. This will require more time to deliver than prior stretch goals due to the nature of travel. If this is met, we will update you all in HW News with the progress.
SUPER Ti STRETCH GOALS
$600,000: An unexpected delay in this process was the rendering. Rendering this full-length movie was not possible on our current editing machines in any reasonable amount of time (or at all, on some of them). Last-minute, we used our Threadripper test bench to render the movie instead. If we hit this amount, we will build multiple Threadripper editing machines for our office, film the process for a PUBLIC UPLOAD, and include unique benchmarks specifically testing this movie render file against various CPU and GPU configurations to provide public data as to the real performance impact of various builds while also improving our capabilities to edit and render our next movies.
Initially achieved stretch goals will be posted/completed by October 1, with the exception of Super Stretch Goals or goals where we note longer timelines are required due to additional production ambitions (such as the visit to DC).
Finding the GPUs
Although the United States Government has issued export controls and “bans” on certain high-performance GPUs getting into China, the irony remains that many of the cards are assembled there.
National Security
Both nations claim national security concerns: China is concerned about US Government backdoors into NVIDIA GPUs, something the company has denied; the United States is concerned about Chinese military simulation using the tools, something for which US company Cadence, at that time run by now-Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, has been found guilty of fueling.
Act Like the Locals
We realized the easiest way to learn about this story would be to act like the locals: We bought a GPU which was smuggled into China.
TIMELINES & OUR OBLIGATIONS
SHIPPING: We will begin shipping items on August 31. We expect to complete all shipments by September 30. In the event of high volume, we will update this page with information for a second shipment wave.
SIZES: Tiers with multiple shirts will all be the same chosen size. All shirts in the tiers are cotton.
DIGITAL REWARDS: These are only available via the Backer Tiers, not if purchasing items individually. These will be distributed on or before September 30. These will be distributed via the email attached to your order, so please use a valid email. Please add support@gamersnexus.net to your filters to ensure it does not end up in spam.
If you’d prefer to donate rather than buy items from us, you can do so using the following button. We sincerely appreciate donations of any amount.