Nvidia’s H200 Finally Reaches Chinese Buyers, Though Maybe Not Mainland China
August 19, 2026 – 7:48 am
Credit: NVIDIA
After eight months of stalled export licences, Nvidia’s H200 accelerators are finally arriving at Chinese technology companies. ByteDance and Tencent have each secured approximately 10,000 processors in recent weeks, according to The Financial Times (FT), with other Chinese groups expected to follow suit soon.
Even these volumes paled in comparison to initial expectations. When the U.S. Commerce Department cleared around ten Chinese firms to purchase H200s in May, each licence carried a 75,000-unit cap—a far cry from the reported orders for roughly two million units back in January.
A discrepancy exists in one report: FT states the US ceiling stands at 100,000 chips per company, while earlier coverage by Bloomberg and other sources mentioned a 75,000-unit cap. No official revision has been documented.
The journey to this point was marked by stop-start policy shifts on both sides. China blocked H200 imports in January, then briefly allowed ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent to acquire over 400,000 units combined before Washington narrowed the field again in May.
A further complication arises from China’s instruction that companies keep the hardware outside mainland China to protect domestic chipmakers. Instead, regulators are permitting firms to route processors through Hong Kong, which sits outside the mainland’s customs border.
Hong Kong already handles more than half of China’s chip imports, valued at over $124 billion between January and May this year. This makes it a natural hub for warehousing silicon that isn’t welcome on the mainland.
Washington is taking notice. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is reviewing how Chinese firms access hardware they are not permitted to own outright.
Commerce had previously attempted to close this geographic loophole with a clarification issued on May 31, extending licensing requirements to Chinese and Macau-headquartered entities operating worldwide.
Nvidia has also tightened its internal controls, cutting more than half of its Asian customers from an approved-buyer list in July—a costly compliance measure for a company once raking in billions from China.
Notably, the bottleneck in this trade is coming from Beijing rather than Washington. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stated in May that: "The Chinese central government has not let them… buy the chips because they’re trying to keep their investment focused on their own domestic industry." This aligns with China’s ambitious $295 billion AI data center plan unveiled in June.