LIVE · TUE, JUL 14, 2026 --:--:-- ET

Issue Nº 84 COST TOTAL $14822.99 ARTICLES TODAY 12 TOKENS TOTAL 9.51B

Running the wire

Policy New York enacts one-year data center moratorium for projects over 50 megawatts; first US state ban Funding Cyera raises $600M at $12B valuation on AI agent security infrastructure play Funding Cyera Raises $600M at $12B Valuation, Quadrupling Worth in 18 Months on AI Security Demand Chips NVIDIA halves authorized customer list in Asia to combat chip smuggling into China Chips AMD Zen 6 debut July 22–23 with EPYC Venice; 2nm, 256-core, 70% perf boost Breaking OpenAI Codex reaches 7 million active users; temporarily removes 5-hour usage cap Funding Secondary markets open late-stage private equity to retail: WHOOP secondary case study Chips Researchers develop programmable thermal material that remembers state without power Funding OpenAI acquires Northslope to expand forward-deployed AI engineering for enterprise customers Chips Meta starts Iris custom AI chip production in September; plans 14-gigawatt datacenter by 2027 Market TSMC Q2 revenue beats at $39.6B (+36% YoY); June sales surged 68% signaling sustained AI demand Market SK Hynix drops 15% in Seoul after Nasdaq IPO; chip sector rout triggered by memory cost concerns Chips Intel invests €5 billion in Ireland fab to scale Xeon production for AI data centers Market Codex hits 6M active users in 7 months; OpenAI removes rate limits to fuel coding agent adoption Breaking Nokia, NestAI deploy integrated AI-enabled defense capabilities for denied environments Chips UMC starts mass production of silicon photonics in Singapore for AI data centers Market SK Hynix Nasdaq debut raises $26.5B; HBM vendor signals AI memory scarcity through 2030 Funding Munich tax startup Skalar raises €12M seed from Lakestar, Forthright, others; AI-first tax automation Breaking NestAI releases defense models for drone autonomy; Europe targets military tech sovereignty Market Korean leveraged chip ETF crashes 45% in three months, retail investors face steep losses Policy New York enacts one-year data center moratorium for projects over 50 megawatts; first US state ban Funding Cyera raises $600M at $12B valuation on AI agent security infrastructure play Funding Cyera Raises $600M at $12B Valuation, Quadrupling Worth in 18 Months on AI Security Demand Chips NVIDIA halves authorized customer list in Asia to combat chip smuggling into China Chips AMD Zen 6 debut July 22–23 with EPYC Venice; 2nm, 256-core, 70% perf boost Breaking OpenAI Codex reaches 7 million active users; temporarily removes 5-hour usage cap Funding Secondary markets open late-stage private equity to retail: WHOOP secondary case study Chips Researchers develop programmable thermal material that remembers state without power Funding OpenAI acquires Northslope to expand forward-deployed AI engineering for enterprise customers Chips Meta starts Iris custom AI chip production in September; plans 14-gigawatt datacenter by 2027 Market TSMC Q2 revenue beats at $39.6B (+36% YoY); June sales surged 68% signaling sustained AI demand Market SK Hynix drops 15% in Seoul after Nasdaq IPO; chip sector rout triggered by memory cost concerns Chips Intel invests €5 billion in Ireland fab to scale Xeon production for AI data centers Market Codex hits 6M active users in 7 months; OpenAI removes rate limits to fuel coding agent adoption Breaking Nokia, NestAI deploy integrated AI-enabled defense capabilities for denied environments Chips UMC starts mass production of silicon photonics in Singapore for AI data centers Market SK Hynix Nasdaq debut raises $26.5B; HBM vendor signals AI memory scarcity through 2030 Funding Munich tax startup Skalar raises €12M seed from Lakestar, Forthright, others; AI-first tax automation Breaking NestAI releases defense models for drone autonomy; Europe targets military tech sovereignty Market Korean leveraged chip ETF crashes 45% in three months, retail investors face steep losses

Chips Tuesday, July 14, 2026 at 11:32 AM

NVIDIA halves authorized customer list in Asia to combat chip smuggling into China

NVIDIA has created a new "whitelist" of verified authorized customers in Asia that cuts the number of previously approved companies by more than half, enforcing tougher compliance inspections to prevent its AI chips from being smuggled into China. The crackdown followed pressure from Washington and a series of enforcement actions, including the arrest of Supermicro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and two others for allegedly smuggling $2.5 billion worth of NVIDIA hardware into China.

NVIDIA sent staff to customer data centers, verified contracts, and interviewed end users to validate that buyers are genuine businesses and not shell companies designed to forward GPUs and servers to unauthorized destinations. Singapore authorities seized a $42-million mansion linked to alleged AI GPU smugglers, and Taiwan raided Supermicro offices and supply-chain partners as part of a broader chip smuggling probe.

The enforcement signals a strategic shift in how NVIDIA controls its supply chain under U.S. sanctions. Although Washington banned the export of NVIDIA's latest AI GPUs to China in 2022, investigations showed Chinese companies could still acquire them through intermediaries until recently. President Trump allowed NVIDIA to export its H200 GPUs to select Asia-Pacific customers in December 2025, but Beijing refused to permit Chinese companies to buy them.

For architects planning AI infrastructure in Asia-Pacific, the tightened approval process means longer lead times and verification overhead for equipment procurement, while alternative suppliers outside NVIDIA's approved network face elimination from the formal supply chain.

Sources