Chinese companies reportedly considering sourcing H200 chips from the black market as chips held at the border — demand for Nvidia AI GPUs remain high despite political uncertainty

Chinese companies are reportedly considering purchasing Nvidia’s H200 AI GPUs from the black market after Beijing banned their import several days ago. According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), Chinese tech companies are faced with either paying more for the GPUs that have been imported illegally into the country or settling for less powerful, domestically made chips.

According to the report, three people familiar with the matter say Chinese customs officials are holding H200 chips at the border. The report says H200 orders are purportedly "super sensitive," and that it is "unclear when authorities would approve the imports." As such, buyers are reportedly considering getting the GPUs from the black market instead because of "urgent need." According to SCMP, resellers are receiving inquiries for the H200, with bundled servers (featuring eight H200 chips) valued at 50 per cent more than their official China list price.

President Donald Trump approved the export of Nvidia’s H200 GPUs in December 2025, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang saying that there is strong customer demand for the chips in China. However, Beijing held an emergency meeting soon after the announcement to discuss the purchase of these AI processors. Earlier this year, the central government instructed its tech companies to pause the purchase of the H200, with some sources suggesting that only university R&D labs could acquire them.

Beijing is facing a dilemma, as it wants to pivot its dependence on Western-made chips and achieve “silicon sovereignty” by supporting its homegrown semiconductor industry. However, it’s also locked in a race with the United States for AI supremacy, and its tech companies need the latest chips they can get their hands on for training the most advanced models.

The Chinese government claims that its homegrown AI processors can now match Nvidia H20 and RTX Pro 6000D in terms of performance, which is useful for AI inferencing. However, the domestic semiconductor industry still hasn’t produced a chip that can match the H200 AI GPU, much less the newer and more powerful Blackwell processors, and the upcoming Vera Rubin, which Nvidia launched at CES 2026 and is expected to arrive in the second half of the year.

Because of this, some companies are reportedly turning to the black market to acquire the most powerful GPUs outside of regular, legal channels. Despite the U.S. ban on advanced Nvidia chips, China hasn’t disallowed the sales of these advanced AI GPUs until recently. Because of this, there have been reports that Chinese companies have smuggled at least a billion dollars’ worth of Nvidia AI chips in 2025, with some importers flaunting the availability of Blackwell B300 well before its launch.

However, Beijing’s recent command means that illicitly acquiring H200 chips has become riskier. This meant that prices for the underground H200 servers, which come with eight GPUs, are priced at around $330,000, according to SCMP — a 50% premium over the MSRP that Nvidia has set for China. Furthermore, availability is spotty due to the increased scrutiny by Chinese customs.

At the moment, it’s still uncertain whether Beijing’s ban on the H200 is a permanent directive or just a temporary measure to get more out of negotiations with the U.S., especially as President Trump is set to visit Beijing in April. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is also set to visit China in late January, although it’s not yet known if he will get to meet senior Chinese officials to talk about the H200 situation.

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