Chinese operators are refurbishing and remarketing Nvidia RTX 4090D GPUs as new equipment.

Some Chinese AI data centers are dismantling and reselling Nvidia RTX 4090D GPUs, according to a report from DigiTimes Asia. These 48GB cards, which were designed to circumvent U.S. export restrictions on the flagship AD102 gaming GPU and initially deployed as part of China's AI infrastructure push, are being pulled from racks, refurbished, and sold on the open market. Data center operators are reportedly finding that this approach offers a faster and more profitable return than waiting three to five years to recover their investment through GPU rental.

Each RTX 4090D sells for between CNY20,000 and CNY40,000 (around US$2,735 to US$5,470). Even lightly used cards require modification for consumer resale, typically converting them from fan-style to blower-style coolers, which are better suited to dense server environments but less effective for single-GPU use.

The selloff reflects significant financial pressure on many AI data centers struggling to keep operations viable amid low demand. According to the report, data centers need utilization rates of at least 70% to break even, but current rates are often below 20%. This leaves expensive infrastructure sitting idle while loan repayments continue. China's rapid AI infrastructure expansion, encouraged by state policy, has led to overbuilding, with hundreds of data center projects launched across the country in 2023 and 2024, but actual usage has lagged behind expectations.

While overcapacity is likely at least part of the reason behind the selloff, some operators may simply be clearing space for newer technology. With interest moving from large-scale model training to real-time inference, older training-focused systems may no longer be as relevant as they once were. Combined with the latest U.S. export restrictions, which affect chips like Nvidia's H20, Chinese data centers will be looking at offloading old hardware and shifting to inference-ready setups.