Nvidia fires back at rumors it will require upfront payment from clients for H200 orders — company says that it ‘would never require customers to pay for products that they do not receive’

Nvidia has refuted the rumor that it would require full advanced payment for H200 orders from its Chinese customers. The AI chip maker stated that it will not ask its clients to completely pay for an item that it has yet to receive. “We do not require upfront payment and would never require customers to pay for products that they do not receive,” an Nvidia spokesperson said in an email to Tom’s Hardware.

Nvidia's comment was first reported by Reuters. According to that report, one source claimed that Nvidia had previously required advanced payments from Chinese clients, sometimes only a deposit instead of a full upfront payment. The article claims that because it's unclear whether Beijing will allow its tech companies to purchase Nvidia H200 GPUs, the company has been "particularly strict" in enforcing these conditions to reduce financial risk.

Even though China-based tech giants like Alibaba and ByteDance are reportedly ready to order over 200,000 of these chips each, the H200 is a last-generation chip that has since been superseded by the Blackwell family. Aside from that, Nvidia has already announced the succeeding Vera Rubin architecture, which is miles ahead in performance and efficiency over the previous-generation GPUs.

As such, companies that have no restrictions will likely only want to purchase the latest available technology as they spend billions of dollars on AI infrastructure to gain an advantage over their competitors. So, if the Chinese government changes its tone at the last moment and refuses to approve the H200 orders of its tech companies, then Nvidia risks being left with hundreds of thousands of H200 GPUs that it would probably have a lot of difficulty selling. Furthermore, those chips would have taken up the production capacity of Nvidia’s contracted fabs, which it could have instead used for building GB200 or even newer chips that will sell for a much higher margin.

The assertion that Nvidia won’t require upfront payment for the H200 chips from Chinese customers will be welcome news, as it reduces their risk while waiting for the final green light from Beijing. The AI chip maker is likely able to easily do this because it reportedly still has over 80,000 H200 chips available in existing stock, reducing its exposure to vacillating political decisions. More than that, it will build goodwill towards Chinese companies and the government — something that the company is carefully balancing with its relationship with the U.S. government, the Trump administration, and the American people.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.