[News] China Reportedly to Allow NVIDIA H200 Imports, but Approvals May Fall Below 200K Chips

As Chinese AI developers accelerate in-house AI chip development to cope with supply shortages, Beijing appears poised to finally approve NVIDIA’s long-delayed H200 imports. Reuters, citing The Information, reported that the government is set to allow leading AI companies—including Alibaba, ByteDance, and DeepSeek—to acquire a limited number of the China-tailored chips.

The easing, however, is expected to be relatively modest. According to the reports, Beijing is likely to authorize fewer than 200,000 H200 chips in total—less than half the volume requested by the companies earlier this year.

The move would also remove a key bottleneck that has persisted for months. CNBC previously reported in May that the U.S. Commerce Department had already granted export licenses to around 10 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com, while several distributors—such as Lenovo and Foxconn—were also cleared to handle H200 sales.

Notably, the U.S. approvals allow for significantly larger purchases than Beijing is expected to permit. According to CNBC, under the export licenses, each authorized customer can procure up to 75,000 H200 chips either directly from NVIDIA or through approved distributors.

Should Beijing follow through, the decision could mark a meaningful step toward restoring NVIDIA’s foothold in one of its most important overseas markets. CNBC notes that the chipmaker once commanded roughly 95% of China’s high-end AI chip market before tighter U.S. export controls took effect, while China contributed about 13% of its revenue.

Meanwhile, as Reuters points out, the potential policy shift also highlights the mounting AI computing capacity shortage confronting China’s technology companies.

Key Restrictions to Watch

However, Investing.com, citing The Information, notes that the reported approval comes with several key conditions. Beyond the limited supply, Beijing is also expected to impose strict rules on how the H200 chips can be used.

According to Investing.com, the chips are reportedly reserved exclusively for AI model training, with their use for inference workloads restricted.

For inference tasks involving already-trained models, Chinese authorities are directing companies to prioritize domestically developed processors, including Huawei’s chips, as part of Beijing’s push to strengthen local AI chip capabilities, the report adds.

Read more

• [News] NVIDIA Reportedly Opens Vera CPU Sales to China as Early as August as H200 Shipments Stall
• [News] U.S. Reportedly Approves NVIDIA H200 Sales to 10 Chinese Firms Including Alibaba, ByteDance, but Deals Stall

(Photo credit: NVIDIA)