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Gary Wojtaszek, a director at GDS Holdings, says China is catching up in AI development. Photo: Asia Times\/ Jeff Pao<\/p>\nThe United States\u2019 export controls aimed at restricting China\u2019s access to Nvidia\u2019s advanced artificial intelligence chips are unlikely to stop Chinese firms from upgrading their AI models, according to some data\u2011center experts.<\/p>\n
When the Trump administration announced last December that it would approve exports of Nvidia\u2019s H200 AI chips to China, it was widely expected that Beijing would welcome the move. Instead, Chinese authorities asked major technology companies to first consider using domestically developed chips.<\/p>\n
Industry experts say Chinese technology firms can easily access Nvidia\u2019s high\u2011end chips in Southeast Asian data centers, either by buying computing power or installing their own server cabinets, allowing them to train AI models overseas before deploying them in China.<\/p>\n
Gary Wojtaszek, a director at GDS Holdings, a major developer and operator of high\u2011performance data centers in China, told Asia Times in an interview in Dublin that US chip export controls are limited in scope because they restrict chip shipments but not the movement of AI data or trained models.<\/p>\n
Gary Wojtaszek, a director at GDS Holdings, says China is catching up in AI development. Photo: Asia Times\/ Jeff Pao<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US chip export rules are pretty nebulous. In China, you can\u2019t import chips, but you can export your data to train your model. Then you import it back,\u201d Wojtaszek said.\u00a0\u201cWater always finds the level playing field. People may try to control or slow a trend, but it will eventually find a natural balance.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said China would ultimately overcome such restrictions either through domestic technological development or by sourcing computing resources elsewhere, noting that enforcing global chip controls is inherently difficult because hardware can easily change hands across borders.<\/p>\n
Wojtaszek said his global perspective is shaped by his exposure to the data\u2011center industry worldwide.<\/p>\n
In August 2011, he joined<\/a> CyrusOne Inc, a real estate investment trust that builds and manages carrier\u2011neutral hyperscale data centers globally, as its president and chief executive officer.<\/p>\n In October 2017, CyrusOne announced<\/a> a US$100 million equity investment to acquire an approximately 10% stake in GDS Holdings, and since June 2018, Wojtaszek has served as a member of GDS\u2019s board of directors. He said he then became a good friend of\u00a0GDS founder and Chief Executive William Wei Huang.<\/p>\n In February 2020, he resigned from CyrusOne, but he continues to serve GDS.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2022, GDS established<\/a> an international subsidiary, GDS International (GDSI), in Singapore to develop data centers across Southeast Asia and other overseas markets. The unit was rebranded as DayOne Data Centers on January 1, 2025. After several rounds of fundraising, GDS retains a 25% stake in DayOne.\u00a0<\/p>\n DayOne operates<\/a> data centers across key markets including Singapore, Johor in Malaysia, Batam in Indonesia, Greater Bangkok, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Finland.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been on the board of DayOne Data Centers since its establishment,\u201d\u00a0Wojtaszek said.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve been friends with William and the team for many years.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he also sits on the board of Nxtra in India, a data center firm in Dublin and several in the US, and advises a data center company in Brazil.<\/p>\n Commenting on the global AI competition, Wojtaszek said the race has so far been dominated by the US and China. He said the US has cutting\u2011edge graphics processing units (GPUs) and large language model (LLM) algorithms,\u00a0but China is catching up quickly and also holds advantages in energy production needed to power AI infrastructure.<\/p>\n He said China has far larger data pools for AI training, while the US faces constraints, including stricter data restrictions and privacy requirements.<\/p>\n \u201cDeepSeek is ingenious. They did something interesting at significantly lower cost and with lower power,\u201d Wojtaszek said, adding that China will continue to reinvent other people\u2019s inventions and make improvements to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n AI Diffusion Rule<\/p>\n In October 2022, the Biden administration banned<\/a> the export of Nvidia\u2019s H100 and A100 chips to China. In October 2023, it expanded the controls to include the H800 and A800 chips.<\/p>\n In early 2025,\u00a0the Biden administration introduced<\/a> the so\u2011called AI Diffusion Rule to control the global distribution of advanced AI chips and computing power. The rule created a three\u2011tier framework that categorized countries according to their access to US AI technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tier 1: 18 US allies, such as Japan and most European countries, can freely import Nvidia\u2019s most advanced AI chips.<\/p>\n Tier 2:\u00a0120 countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, India and the United Arab Emirates, face tighter controls and must obtain individual licenses or validated end\u2011user (VEU) authorization to access advanced AI chips.<\/p>\n Tier 3: Countries including China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are considered high risk for diverting or misusing advanced AI chips, particularly for military purposes.<\/p>\n Although the rule was scheduled to take effect last May, the Trump administration withdrew<\/a> it after concluding that its scope was too broad and it would be difficult to enforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n Washington now allows exports of Nvidia\u2019s H200 chips to China, but not the most advanced Blackwell GPUs. Meanwhile, Beijing wants domestic data centers to prioritize local alternatives such as Huawei Technologies\u2019 AI processors. As a result, many Chinese firms seek access to Nvidia chips in overseas locations, including Singapore and Johor in Malaysia.<\/p>\n The Wall Street Journal reported<\/a> last June that four Chinese engineers flew from Beijing to Kuala Lumpur carrying hard drives loaded with AI training data. They reportedly rented about 300 Nvidia AI servers at a Malaysian data center to process the data. The newspaper said the move did not appear to violate any law but illustrated a loophole in US chip export controls.<\/p>\n The Financial Times reported<\/a> last November that major Chinese companies, including Alibaba and ByteDance, have been training AI models in Southeast Asian data centers to gain access to Nvidia\u2019s high\u2011end chips.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, whether Nvidia\u2019s most advanced chips can be shipped directly to China may not significantly affect the company\u2019s overall performance. Nvidia\u2019s revenue surged<\/a> 65% year\u2011on\u2011year to US$215.9 billion for the financial year ended January 25, 2026. About one\u2011fifth of the company\u2019s revenue came from Singapore, making it Nvidia\u2019s second\u2011largest market after the US.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, new uncertainty has emerged. On January 14, the US House of Representatives passed<\/a> the Remote Access Security Act, a bipartisan bill that modernizes the Export Control Reform Act by expanding federal authority to restrict foreign adversaries\u2019 ability to access sensitive technologies remotely through cloud computing services.<\/p>\n If the act becomes law, using US AI chips or computing services via overseas data centers could fall under the same export\u2011control rules that govern hardware shipments.\u00a0<\/p>\n Demand from Hong Kong<\/p>\n Apart from the impact of US chip controls, another reason Southeast Asian countries have seen rising demand for AI data\u2011center services is that they are benefiting from a shift in demand away from Hong Kong.<\/p>\n Doug Adams, chief executive and president of NTT Global Data Centers, the world\u2019s third\u2011largest data\u2011center operator, told Asia Times in an interview in London that many customers in the region now prefer to place their computing infrastructure in Southeast Asia rather than Hong Kong.<\/p>\n \u201cHong Kong is a challenging market. I think that most customers in that region, given the choice, prefer to be in Singapore and other parts of that area,\u201d Adams said. \u201cJohor Bahru is becoming a big market. Malaysia and Indonesia are both growing. Thailand is growing quite a bit. All these markets are outgrowing Hong Kong.\u201d<\/p>\n Adams said a shift in global telecommunications infrastructure may have contributed to this trend.<\/p>\n In recent years, several US technology companies and telecom operators have scaled back plans to connect new undersea fiber\u2011optic cables directly to Hong Kong. After Washington raised national\u2011security concerns about data flows to mainland China, projects such as the Pacific Light Cable Network were forced<\/a> to reroute connections away from Hong Kong toward alternative hubs including Taiwan, the Philippines and Singapore.\u00a0<\/p>\n In addition to connectivity issues, Hong Kong has faced challenges in adopting generative AI services. Several major Western LLMs, including OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, Google\u2019s Gemini and Anthropic\u2019s Claude, are not officially available for direct consumer use in Hong Kong.<\/p>\n Read: Nvidia halts H200 production as China backs Huawei AI chips<\/a><\/p>\n Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at\u00a0@jeffpao3<\/a><\/p>\n \t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/NTT-Global-Data-Centers.jpg\")
Doug Adams, chief executive and president of NTT Global Data Centers Photo: Asia Times\/ Jeff Pao<\/p>\n