Chinese AI developers cannot legally buy the world’s most powerful AI chips, yet the country’s tech giants and start-ups have quietly kept pace with global rivals by moving heavy training workloads across borders through the cloud, according to the article. By setting up proxy entities in foreign jurisdictions, domestic firms have for years leased server space in data centres across Southeast Asia, Japan and the Middle East, according to a broker in Shenzhen who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. Under contracts signed by non-Chinese entities, models have been trained on cutting-edge Nvidia processors housed thousands of miles away outside the reach of US authorities, he said.