00:00Bloomberg has learned that several Chinese universities with ties to the military are seeking access to NVIDIA's H200 chips.
00:07Based on a review of procurement records and documents, some of these institutions you see on your screens,
00:14including Beihang University, Northwestern Polytech, both are on a U.S. Commerce Department blacklist for their work with the military.
00:23Now, national security reporter Kate O'Keefe, in fact, joins us right now from Washington to tell us about this
00:29report
00:30and what findings you think we should know about here as far as this investigation was concerned here.
00:37Right. So in summary, we found that at least seven universities who are working directly with the PLA, China's military,
00:46are trying right now to get access to NVIDIA's H200 chips, which are the most powerful AI processors that the
00:55U.S. has ever allowed to be sold into China.
00:57And in addition to that, we found that more than 25 of these universities that are tied to China's military
01:03are already using or are trying to get access to older generation NVIDIA chips.
01:10Okay. So tell us more about, I guess the question, the two-part question is, tell us more about these
01:15universities.
01:16And I guess, is it more to do with, do these universities just happen to have ties with the military?
01:23Or is the story more broadly, because of those ties, hence the demand for these chips?
01:30Well, I can say that the universities are not random.
01:33They are, many of them are very well known to the U.S. government.
01:36And in fact, a fair number of them have been blacklisted, as you mentioned, by the Commerce Department for years,
01:44due specifically to their work for advancing China's military.
01:49So these universities are, you know, working on things such as nuclear programs and, you know, working to develop missiles.
01:57So, you know, they are right in the thick of it.
02:01And so, right, that was a really interesting aspect of our findings.
02:07Now, broader implications of this, where do we need to be looking?
02:13Right. So I think the findings, you know, will be of interest to U.S. policymakers,
02:17because for some years now, the U.S. has taken the stance that we do not want to give China
02:23technology
02:23that could ultimately end up being used against us on the battlefield should a conflict erupt.
02:30And so the idea that there's interest from these military-linked universities in NVIDIA's chips,
02:36which are the best in the world, is something that I think a lot of policymakers in Washington are interested
02:41in
02:41and have commented on.
02:43They have expressed concerns about this very thing happening.
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