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Beijing is set to limit access to Nvidia’s advanced H200 chips despite Donald Trump’s decision to allow the export of the technology to China as it pushes to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductor production.
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.
Trump on Monday said in a Truth Social post that he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that the US would allow Nvidia “to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China . . . under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security. President Xi responded positively!”
Trump added that “$25% will be paid to the United States of America”, without giving details of the arrangement.
Shipments to China of Nvidia’s H200 chips and other advanced processors crucial to the development of AI were banned under the Biden administration over US concerns that they might be used in military applications.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang has been lobbying for the ban to be lifted, while proponents of exports argue they would help the US by making China reliant on American technology.
China has used the ban to push domestic chipmakers to develop products to compete with Nvidia. Moves include stepping up customs checks of chip imports and offering energy subsidies to data centres using domestic chips.
The two regulators in charge of Beijing’s years-long semiconductor independence campaign — the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology — could apply other measures to ensure the competitiveness of domestic chips, the people said, including banning China’s public sector from buying the H200.
The return of Nvidia’s advanced chips would be welcomed by tech giants such as Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent, which have been using more Chinese chips for some basic AI functions but still prefer Nvidia’s products because of their higher performance and easier maintenance.
Many of them are training their AI models abroad to access Nvidia chips banned at home.
While Trump has signalled his approval for the export of Nvidia’s advanced chips to China, he faces opposition in Congress. A group of US senators has introduced legislation that would prevent the administration from approving exports of chips, including the H200, to China for 30 months.
Washington might also adopt an approval process that allows sales of H200 chips only to companies it considers “safe”, said the people familiar with the matter.
Nvidia has already been approved to export the H20, a watered-down version of the H200 made specifically for China, after the company in August agreed to pay the US government 15 per cent of its revenues from chip sales in China.
Beijing, however, has restricted tech companies’ access to the H20, arguing the chip’s performance is not significantly better than Chinese alternatives.
In response to Trump’s Truth Social post, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said: “China has consistently advocated that China and the US achieve mutual benefit and win-win results through co-operation.”
The NDRC and MIIT did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Additional contributions from Cheng Leng in Beijing
