China is seeing rising demand for repair services of Nvidia’s high-end AI chips, including the H100 and A100, which are banned under US export restrictions.

Boutique repair firms in Shenzhen have emerged to meet this need, with some repairing hundreds of GPUs monthly.

The influx of smuggled chips has fueled this repair boom, with prices ranging from 10,000 yuan (US$1,400) to 20,000 yuan (US$2,800) depending on the issue.

The demand stems from the heavy use of these GPUs in data-intensive tasks, leading to higher failure rates.

Nvidia chips typically last two to five years, based on use and maintenance.

Meanwhile, the US is working to curb smuggling and has introduced bills to track high-end chipsets post-sale.

Nvidia cannot legally offer repair or replacement services in China.

While some users are turning to the H20 chips, which comply with US rules, they are less effective for training large models and cost over 1 million yuan (US$139,400) per server.

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