Approximately 600,000 of Nvidia's advanced H200 AI chips are reportedly being held in Hong Kong pending shipment to mainland China, with officials in Beijing withholding approval for large-scale imports.
The stockpiled chips reflect Beijing's reluctance to increase its reliance on U.S. technology, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter, as rivalry between the two nations over the AI race continues.
Washington has long restricted China's access to certain AI chips through export controls, with Nvidia recently instructing its global data center partners to reduce their exposure to Chinese clients. Meanwhile, Beijing has accelerated efforts to build its own high-end semiconductor capabilities to help meet surging AI demand in China.
Export restrictions on AI chips
With U.S. restrictions on chip exports in place since 2022, Nvidia's more powerful Blackwell-based B300 chips cannot be sold to Chinese buyers. The H200 chips are less advanced, but are among the most powerful Nvidia GPUs that remain available to China.
China has allowed some chips to enter the country in recent months, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters, with several internet firms obtaining 10,000 H200 chips each, one of the people said.
However, earlier this week, Chinese AI and cloud firms including Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance said they expect to receive only about 1% of the Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 chips they ordered over the next few months due to tight supply and lack of large-volume import approval from Beijing.
The Latent reached out to China's National Development and Reform Commission and Nvidia for comment.