A filing by UK-based data center operator Nscale reveals that ByteDance's Singaporean subsidiary Spring gained access to 2,304 Nvidia B200 chips through Nscale's Glomfjord, Norway facility, according to Tom's Hardware. The arrangement exploited legal loopholes in U.S. export controls that bar Chinese companies from importing advanced Nvidia accelerators directly into China but permit them to rent or purchase chips through foreign subsidiaries and overseas data centers.
The deal emerged in Nscale's S-1 filing for a U.S. initial public offering. Spring does not appear by name in the main filing; instead, it surfaces in a $105 million loan agreement with Macquarie that identifies Spring (SG) Pte Ltd as a significant customer. The contract accounted for $24 million of Nscale's $33 million annual revenue in 2025. Nscale used the Macquarie credit, alongside $35 million in equity, to purchase the B200 chips that Spring would access at the Norway data center.
The arrangement carried enough regulatory risk that Macquarie required Nscale to monitor Spring's use of the chips and report "compute anomalies or suspicious configurations" that might violate export controls. Nscale also commissioned third-party due diligence on both ByteDance and its Singapore subsidiary to verify legal compliance. The Financial Times reported that the deal itself was legal, though it operated within the margins of U.S. policy.
The timing of the disclosure matters for Nscale's competitive position. A month after drawing the first tranche of the Macquarie loan, Nscale closed a deal with Microsoft and Nvidia in which Jensen Huang committed to invest more than $660 million. Nvidia has since increased its total commitment to over $2 billion, plus an $860 million guarantee on Nscale's Texas facility lease. Those commitments came after the Spring contract was already in place and documented.
Nscale has since secured larger Western clients: a $44 billion deal with Microsoft and a $45 billion contract with Anthropic. The company stated that Spring's share of revenue would fall below 20% as these deals close, and is expected to shrink further. The shift reflects both Nscale's ability to diversify its customer base and the narrowing window for Chinese companies to exploit the loopholes that enabled the Spring arrangement.
The U.S. has moved to close both pathways that made the deal possible. Chinese companies can no longer use foreign subsidiaries to purchase advanced chips directly, and the Trump administration is working to restrict rental arrangements as well. It remains unclear whether these policy changes will affect the existing Spring-Nscale contract. However, delays in gigawatt-scale U.S. data center projects mean Nscale could attract additional hyperscaler clients seeking compute from smaller, operational facilities.
For architects evaluating inference infrastructure and chip supply chains, the filing documents a concrete example of how geopolitical constraints reshape allocation: 2,304 B200s that might otherwise have been available through direct U.S. channels were instead routed through Norway, and that routing is now closing.