Full Summary

Several Chinese AI data centers are dismantling and refurbishing excess Nvidia RTX 4090D GPUs — a China-specific model with 48GB of VRAM — and reselling them to recover costs. This shift comes amid persistently low utilization rates, with some facilities operating below 20%, far short of the 70–75% needed for profitability.

Instead of renting out idle compute, which would take 3–5 years to break even, operators are choosing liquidation of physical assets as a faster path to debt relief. The cards, reportedly resold for up to $5,500 USD, are often modified for consumer use (converted to blower-style cooling designs), raising concerns about resale authenticity and system integration risks.

Signal Timeline

• March 2025 – Widespread reports of idle capacity in Tier 2 Chinese AI compute parks
• April 17, 2025 – GPU reseller volume spikes observed in Shenzhen electronics markets
• April 23, 2025 – Tom's Hardware reports active resale and GPU modification underway

Related Signals

• US export controls expanded to cover Nvidia H20 and AMD MI308 chips to China
• Rumors of Nvidia pausing RTX 5090D shipments to Chinese board partners
• Growing second-hand AI compute hardware markets in Vietnam and the Philippines

Analyst Commentary

This signal highlights a key inflection in China's AI infrastructure cycle: a growing disconnect between massive capital expenditure and sustainable compute utilization. It reflects the fragility of high-performance infrastructure without matching workloads — a cautionary signal for sovereign AI capacity strategies elsewhere.

The resale of modified datacenter-grade GPUs also raises secondary concerns around hardware lifecycle management, domestic regulation, and quality control in downstream markets.

Sources

• MSN: Chinese Data Centers Refurbing and Selling Nvidia RTX 4090D GPUs
• Yahoo Finance: Chinese Data Centers Refurbing and Selling Nvidia RTX 4090D GPUs