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ToggleAccording to Reuters , the U.S. government has reportedly approved Nvidia's sale of its high-end H200 AI chip to about 10 Chinese companies, reopening a key revenue stream for Nvidia in the Chinese market. However, it is understood that no actual shipments have been made yet.
Export conditions and restrictions
This message contains explicit conditions:
- A 25% customs duty is levied on each transaction.
- Each Chinese company is limited to an annual production capacity of 75,000 H200 chips.
- Exports must be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Commerce to ensure compliance with security and defense requirements.
- This approval does not include Nvidia's latest Blackwell and Rubin chips.
- The approval also applies to other US chipmakers such as AMD and Intel.
List of Chinese companies authorized to procure
According to Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, the approximately 10 approved Chinese companies include tech giants such as Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance , covering major players in China's cloud computing and AI sectors.
The core competitiveness of the H200 chip
The H200 is NVIDIA's second most powerful GPU, second only to the newly released Blackwell chip. It features 141GB of HBM3e high-bandwidth memory and is a key component for training large AI models. Compared to the H20, which was designed specifically for the Chinese market and had its specifications downgraded, the H200 offers a significant improvement in computing power.
In fiscal year 2023, the Chinese market accounted for 17% of Nvidia's revenue, making it one of Nvidia's most important markets. Behind this approval lies the Trump administration's attempt to strike a balance between "delaying China's AI development" and "maintaining the influence of the US technology industry in China."
Meanwhile, competition in China's domestic chip industry is intensifying. AI accelerators launched by domestic manufacturers such as Huawei (e.g., the Ascend 910B) are reportedly narrowing the performance gap with Nvidia's export-controlled chips. If H200 shipments continue to be delayed, it will create a crucial window of opportunity for domestic alternatives like Huawei to gain market share.
Furthermore, Chinese authorities had previously instructed their data centers to increase the proportion of domestically produced chips they sourced, with state-owned computing centers instructed to ensure that more than half of their chips came from domestic manufacturers. Large companies such as Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance were also instructed to suspend H2O chip purchases during national security reviews.
Uncertainties surrounding Huang Renxun's visit to China
This approval comes at a time when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is seeking a breakthrough in the Chinese market. Reports indicate Huang will visit China with a US business delegation, but other sources deny this, adding to the uncertainty. A successful visit could potentially break the current stalemate in H200 shipments.
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