A U.S. Commerce official has confirmed during a House hearing that the department has yet to approve any sale of the Nvidia H200 to China. According to Bloomberg, Assistant Secretary for export enforcement David Peters was telling the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the administration’s efforts to crack down on the smuggling of AI GPUs to China. When Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D.-Calif.) asked him about the number of H200 GPUs that have been approved for sale since President Donald Trump made a complete U-turn on the export restrictions on the chip, he said, “My understanding is that so far, none.”
This is a blow to Nvidia’s dream of recapturing its market share in China, which has since fallen to zero from a high of 95% before Trump pulled the plug on H20 exports to the country in April 2025. There has been a lot of optimism in the company after it was finally allowed to sell the more powerful H200 GPU, with the company reportedly preparing 82,000 AI GPUs just two weeks after the White House announcement.
But as soon as Washington gave Nvidia the green light, Beijing immediately called for an emergency meeting with its biggest tech companies to determine demand for the graphics card. A month later, it told them to pause H200 purchases as the central government was still deliberating on how to go about importing these powerful Nvidia GPUs. The CCP is facing a dilemma here, as it wants its companies to purchase locally made semiconductors to help push forward its domestic semiconductor industry, which it claims can already match Nvidia’s defanged H20 and RTX Pro 6000D GPUs, but also needs its AI firms to be able to compete against Western AI models with the use of the most powerful AI chips available.
Article continues belowIn the end, it decided to limit H200 purchases to “special circumstances,” suggesting that only university R&D laboratories could acquire them. The U.S. has also put stringent requirements on export licenses for the H200, making it difficult for organizations to get the numbers they need. Still, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is clinging to hope that Chinese companies would soon be allowed purchase from the company again. He even visited the country in late January, without a clear meeting with state authorities. Unfortunately, he returned empty-handed, confirming that Beijing has yet to decide on approvals for H200 imports. Now Trump is scheduled to travel to China in March, where he’s expected to discuss trade issues with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but it’s uncertain if this will include discussions about Nvidia’s access to the country.
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