After years in which US export bans effectively erased Nvidia's AI chips from the Chinese market, both governments appear to be opening a narrow door.
A US official says Nvidia has begun shipping its powerful H200 AI chips to China, according to Rappler. On the Chinese side, Beijing plans to let its top AI firms buy a limited number of H200 chips, according to a report by The Information cited by Yahoo Finance.
The approvals are moving in step. US clearances are easing, with more Chinese firms now cleared to buy Nvidia AI chips, according to Electronics For You. Yahoo Finance reports that Nvidia and AMD shares climbed after three Chinese firms reportedly received US approval to purchase advanced chips.
At the same time, Nvidia is tightening who it sells to elsewhere in the region. The company has cut more than half of its verified customers in Asia in a bid to reduce AI chip smuggling, according to a report cited by Yahoo Finance, with remaining clients required to pass more stringent checks. A Financial Times report, cited by MSN, frames this as Nvidia's "new solution" to its "China problem" — aggressive steps to control where its chips end up. TradingView summarizes the moment as Nvidia limiting Asia exports, the US approving the H200, and the company's revenue rising.
The H200 is a high-end AI processor, and China represents a major potential market that US policy has largely walled off. These moves suggest a shift from outright bans toward controlled, monitored sales — letting some chips through official channels while trying to shut down the gray-market routes that ban-era scarcity created.
Why it matters: the flow of the world's most advanced AI chips sits at the center of US-China competition, and even a limited, tightly policed opening could reshape who builds the next generation of artificial intelligence.