(Yicai) Oct. 19 -- The price of US chipmaker Nvidia’s graphics processing units GeForce RTX 4090 has surged by thousands of Chinese yuan, equivalent to hundreds of US dollars, at a large electronics marketplace in Shenzhen, and in some places they have completely sold out, as vendors rush to stock up before a new US export ban takes effect.

The price of RTX 4090 cards surged 20 percent today from yesterday to CNY20,000 (USD2,735), vendors at Huaqiangbei said. And on e-commerce platforms they are now selling for between CNY16,500 (USD2,255) and CNY29,999, while highly configurated RTX 4090s can even cost more than CNY30,000.

The US government updated its export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips to China on Oct. 17, and the new curbs apply to Nvidia’s RTX 4090, one of the most powerful and best performing graphics cards available in the consumer market. The ban will take effect in 30 days’ time.

The price increases and the lack of stock are not due to a spike in demand, but rather people are hoarding so as to sell them at a higher price later, vendors based in Shanghai and Shenzhen told Yicai. Last year, when RTX 4090 cards were released on the market, they cost just CNY12,999.

It’s a bit of a gamble to stock up on RTX 4090 GPUs as it is unclear what will happen in the future, some merchants said. Although the retail price has more than doubled, it might drop to the original price should the export curbs be lifted.

Other Nvidia graphics cards such RTX 4080 are also going up in price, but not as much as the RTX 4090. But if the shortage of RTX 4090s continues, demand will shift to other GPUs, pushing up prices.

Editors：Shi Yi, Kim Taylor