Nvidia (nvidia on 164news.com) Ships First H200 Chips to China but Expects No Data-Centre Revenue
Nvidia has shipped its first H200 processors to China under a new US licensing scheme, and they accounted for less than 1% of $89B in quarterly data centre revenue. Its $108B forecast for the current quarter assumes no data centre computing revenue from China at all.
According to Jensen Huang, even unconstrained growth would be higher than the guided 70% figure for next year. Europe’s response is seven AI gigafactories at €30B, with roughly €1B of public funding committed. This is equivalent to about a day’s worth of Nvidia’s data centre sales revenue.
Each planned site will house at least 100,000 advanced chips, all purchased from Nvidia on the open market. Server prices are projected to rise by more than 15% early next year, and construction for these factories is scheduled to begin in early 2027, with operations starting mid-2028.
As discussed by TWN, the sovereignty narrative around this development is tenuous. Renting silicon from a European address is more of an illusion of independence than actual autonomy. Ultimately, the H200 story revolves around leverage: Nvidia can lose a market the size of China and still grow, while Europe negotiates for buildings it hasn’t yet funded with chips it doesn’t make.