MSI fervently denies RTX 5090 sales in China after pallets of illicit GPUs spotted in the country — company says it has identified 'unauthorized distribution unrelated to our sales policy'

MSI has issued a statement clarifying that it does not sell Nvidia's RTX 5090 GPU, following a spate of rumors and a photograph circulating online depicting hundreds of MSI-branded cards at an unspecified location in the country.

Three days ago, a user on Reddit posted an image showing unattended pallets of RTX 5090 GPUs lying in a street in China. This prompted online chatter pertaining to a lack of enforcement for export controls, as the RTX 5090 is one of many high-end cards that are banned from export to China. Aware of the PR connotations of getting caught, or even accused, of dealing the GPUs in the region, MSI was quick to issue a rebuttal.

In a new statement posted on its site, the company has clarified that it had nothing to do with the RTX 5090 shipments spotted in China, and claims the global serial number tracking has confirmed they are parallel imports — when a genuine product is imported through questionable means, without the explicit permission of the parent company.

Dealers skirting export controls on high-demand GPUs remains a headache for Washington. Just recently, a Singaporean company was accused of helping smuggle $2 billion worth of Nvidia GPUs into the country. We've known for a while now that underground markets exist in the region, where cards are regularly modded with increased VRAM to make them better for AI applications.

All of this leads to a precedent where, even though Beijing shouldn't be the recipient of high-end AI cards on paper, reality begs to differ. Nvidia has made region-specific RTX 5090D and 5090D V2 models for China, but they carry neutered specs, which leads to shady, black-market shipments thriving. Nvidia has always held the position that China is an important market for the chipmaker, but that it, too, has nothing to do with how the region keeps getting its hands on banned GPUs.

MSI reiterated that it only sells its RTX 5090 in the U.S., Europe, and some Asia-Pacific markets, and that any unauthorized units obtained via grey channels are not covered under warranty. These illicit GPUs allegedly arrived in China through third-party resellers and retailers in overseas markets who bypassed regulations and illegally imported the cards.

While there was no word on any active investigations or whether the hardware manufacturer plans to take action, MSI did note that any products bought through non-official channels may have been resold or tampered with, and aren't eligible for warranty, repair services, or technical support. MSI is a Taiwanese company, a country that remains imperative in the ongoing U.S.–China trade war, and is an extremely sensitive region geopolitically. A significant portion of MSI's production facilities is located in Mainland China.

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