Overview
- Initial clearances cover several hundred thousand H200 units, primarily allocated to Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance, according to multiple reports.
- The go‑ahead was issued during Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s visit to China, reversing an earlier customs hold that had blocked H200 entries.
- Approvals are conditional, with regulators encouraging or requiring bundled purchases of domestic chips and restricting use by sensitive sectors, and some recipients have not yet converted approvals into orders.
- Chinese tech firms have indicated demand exceeding 2 million H200s, but near‑term deliveries depend on license terms, customs implementation and Nvidia/TSMC supply constraints.
- The U.S. authorized H200 exports to vetted Chinese customers earlier this month, and further Chinese approvals may follow, though access for state‑backed and critical infrastructure users is expected to remain tightly controlled.