Huawei tells customers to find their own AI chip memory, effectively outsourcing procurement to the black market

Huawei is telling customers to source the high-performance memory for its AI chips on their own, pushing them onto the black market. Smugglers are exploiting a loophole in U.S. export rules by bundling HBM with low-end processors, shipping them through Hong Kong, and separating the chips on site. Prices for smuggled HBM3E memory have surged to around $4,000 per unit in just one year.