Epoch AI estimates scale of smuggled-chip compute in China

Epoch AI published an estimate of how much AI compute had reached China through export-control evasion, putting the median figure at 660,000 H100-equivalent GPUs smuggled by the end of 2025 — roughly a third of China’s total AI compute stock and about 3% of the global compute stockpile. Its 90% confidence interval ran far wider, from 290,000 to 1.6 million H100-equivalents, reflecting how little of the underlying activity is directly observed.

The estimate combined two independent methods: tracking diversions from legitimate supply chains, largely drawn from US indictments and investigative reporting rather than court convictions, and monitoring resale markets inside China. Epoch assumed a detection rate for smuggling operations of only 10-80% (a median of about 24.5%), meaning the true total was likely well above the roughly 300,000 H100-equivalents it judged directly traceable to specific alleged diversion cases — and even those cases carry uncertainty, since an alleged diversion does not guarantee the chips arrived or evaded interception. Epoch was explicit that its published range reflected substantial uncertainty rather than a settled figure.

The report added a data point to the long-running dispute over how effective US chip export controls have been: an estimate of roughly a third of China’s compute originating outside sanctioned channels supports arguments that enforcement has been leaky, while the same figure implies most of China’s AI compute — the remaining two-thirds — was acquired through legal channels or domestic production, a point controls’ defenders could equally cite.