China thinks twice about allowing imports of advanced Nvidia chips
US President Donald Trump just did China a solid – but it's not clear Beijing cares.
What happened: On December 8, Trump announced on Truth Social that he will let Nvidia ship H200 AI GPUs to Chinese customers (with the US government taking a 25% cut).
The move looked like a big concession to China, which has long chafed at US export controls on high-end semiconductors.
But it's not clear that China will allow imports of H200s on a large scale (FT):
- "According to two people with knowledge of the matter, regulators in Beijing have been discussing ways to permit limited access to the H200, Nvidia’s second-best generation of artificial intelligence chips."
- "Buyers would probably be required to go through an approval process, the people said, submitting requests to purchase the chips and explaining why domestic providers were unable to meet their needs."
- "No final decision had been made yet, the people added."
There is a big backstory here: Back in August, the Trump administration allowed exports of the H20 – a throttled version of the H200 compliant with China export restrictions – on condition of a 15% cut.
- Trump faced criticism in Washington for the H20 decision on national security grounds.
- Beijing also wasn’t a fan of the deal – fearing it would stifle domestic chip development – and blocked purchases by Chinese firms.
The H200 will be a more tempting import for Beijing.
- The H200 is a vastly superior chip, well-suited for both training and inference.
- The H20 couldn’t be used for AI training, only having the capacity to provide AI inference capabilities.
But it's still not the best that Nvidia has to offer: The Blackwell and upcoming Rubin series remain off-limits for Chinese importers.
Get smart: The H200 would be the most powerful AI accelerator Beijing can legally obtain, helping Chinese AI models stay competitive with the US.
Get smarter: Inviting Nvidia back to the Chinese market will slow the adoption of domestic AI chips, harming China’s long-term chip self-sufficiency ambitions.
Our take: We think Beijing is unlikely to let in H200s on a large scale.