Beijing Reportedly Set to Let Top Chinese AI Firms Buy Nvidia H200 Chips, With Approvals Capped Below 200,000 Units
Chinese officials have told Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek in recent weeks that they may soon receive permission to buy Nvidia H200 chips, The Information reported on Wednesday, in a story carried by both Reuters and Bloomberg, marking what would be Beijing’s side of the door opening after Washington cleared such sales earlier this year.
Approvals could total fewer than 200,000 chips, less than half of what the companies requested earlier this year, with authorities still deciding the exact number, the report said. Companies must state the quantity they want and the intended use. Nvidia, the US Commerce Department, China’s commerce ministry and the three named companies did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, and no party had confirmed or denied the report by Friday.
The reported move would clear the holdout side of a two-way approval process. Washington formally cleared H200 sales to China on 14 January with a 25 percent per-chip surcharge and conditions including third-party verification and a cap keeping China below half of US-customer volumes, per CNBC, and in May cleared sales to about ten Chinese firms. Beijing, which in January had told its companies to pause purchases while it set terms, remained the holdout: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers in the spring that zero H200s had been sold to China to that point.
Nvidia shares rose 3.65 percent to 204.12 dollars on Wednesday, the day the report landed, before easing 0.66 percent on Thursday.
Why it matters: A capped, conditional reopening of one of the world’s largest AI-chip markets would matter well beyond Nvidia’s revenue line. For the Gulf, the signal is that advanced-computing access is becoming an instrument of economic diplomacy on both sides, in the same week Washington eased advanced-computing export controls for the UAE. The memory-chip demand implications also feed directly into the cycle that carried SK Hynix to its record Nasdaq debut, covered in our market wrap.
Outlook: The report remains unconfirmed by any government or company. The quantities Beijing finally approves, and whether purchases actually flow after months of mutual signalling, will show whether this is a thaw or another pause in the technology standoff.
Sources: The Information via Reuters and Bloomberg; CNBC.
