The companies are preparing to place sizable orders if Beijing grants approval, two sources said, though uncertainties around supply persist. One source noted that the firms have asked Nvidia for clarity on availability before making commitments.
Until Trump’s decision, the most advanced Nvidia chip that could legally enter China was the H20. The H200, manufactured in Taiwan, offers nearly six times the performance of the H20, reshaping demand calculations for Chinese buyers. Even so, Beijing has not yet formally responded to the announcement, and recent restrictions on government-funded data centers and domestic tech companies have weighed heavily on Nvidia’s China business.
Regulators reportedly convened major players—including Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent—seeking assessments of their potential H200 requirements, according to The Information. Officials indicated that a decision on import permissions would follow.
Supply remains tight. Two people familiar with Nvidia’s production plans said that only small volumes of the H200 are currently being manufactured as the company prioritizes its Blackwell and forthcoming Rubin chip families.
Chinese firms’ interest is being driven by the H200’s superior training capabilities, far outpacing domestic chips that are more suitable for inference workloads. A Reuters review of over 100 tenders and academic publications indicates that elite universities, data-center operators, and entities linked to the military have attempted to obtain the H200 through grey-market channels.
Authorities are expected to scrutinize any import requests, weighing the desire to acquire top-tier hardware against efforts to boost the market share of domestic chipmakers such as Huawei and Cambricon, sources said.
“The training of leading Chinese AI models still relies on Nvidia cards,” said Zhang Yuchun, a general manager at SuperCloud’s solutions and ecology units. He predicted that major Chinese tech companies would “buy a lot, although in a low-key manner.”
China’s foreign ministry, asked about the H200, reiterated only that the country values cooperation with the United States and offered no further comment.