In 2026, the United States implemented sweeping global export controls on high-end AI chips, mandating that companies like NVIDIA secure approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce before exporting AI accelerators to any nation. Amidst this regulatory climate, reports surfaced indicating that Chinese tech giant ByteDance had procured NVIDIA's Blackwell B200 chips through its cloud service partner in Malaysia, effectively circumventing the U.S.'s direct export restrictions to China. Prior to this, the U.S. had progressively intensified its chip export controls targeting China, enacting measures such as prohibiting the sale of high-performance chips like NVIDIA's A100 and H100 within China and preventing Chinese firms from accessing these technologies through the leasing of overseas data centers. ByteDance's actions are perceived as a strategic maneuver to navigate around the U.S. export controls.