No H200s to China
- U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers that Nvidia has sold zero H200 AI chips to Chinese customers so far. - Chinese authorities appear to be delaying approvals to prioritize domestic semiconductor investment over foreign purchases. - A licence from Washington doesn't guarantee shipments if Beijing withholds permission, complicating demand forecasts for chip suppliers (reuters.com).
Nvidia still has not shipped any H200 artificial intelligence chips into China, even after Washington cleared sales with conditions. (money.usnews.com) U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told lawmakers on April 22 that Chinese companies had bought “zero” H200 chips so far, according to Reuters. He said the holdup was on the Chinese side, where buyers have struggled to get government permission. (money.usnews.com) The Trump administration gave a formal green light in January 2026 for China-bound H200 sales, but Reuters reported that the approval came with conditions and did not produce actual shipments. Chinese officials have been weighing whether to let the chips in at all. (srnnews.com) The H200 is one of Nvidia’s top data-center chips for training and running large artificial intelligence models. Nvidia says it carries 141 gigabytes of HBM3e memory and 4.8 terabytes per second of memory bandwidth, which lets it handle bigger models and move data faster than the older H100. (nvidia.com) That makes the China delay more than a customs dispute. A U.S. export license can reopen a market on paper, but Beijing can still slow or stop purchases if it wants Chinese cloud and internet groups to buy more domestic chips instead. (money.usnews.com) (cn.nikkei.com) Nikkei reported in January that Chinese officials were discussing caps on how many advanced Nvidia chips local companies could buy. The same report said Beijing had not yet allowed H200 imports, even after Washington shifted from a ban to a licensing system. (cn.nikkei.com 1) (cn.nikkei.com 2) The politics in Washington are moving the other way. Reuters said China hawks in Congress have argued that selling advanced Nvidia chips could help China’s military and undercut years of U.S. export controls. (srnnews.com) Nvidia has not publicly shown China H200 revenue because there is no China H200 revenue to show yet. For suppliers and investors, that leaves demand forecasts stuck between a U.S. approval issued in January and a Chinese approval that still has not arrived by April 23. (money.usnews.com) (investor.nvidia.com)
