Chip export approvals stall
Approvals for Nvidia and AMD AI-chip exports to China are reportedly stalling because the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security has seen severe staffing turnover, slowing decisions on H20-class and MI308-class accelerator approvals. The bottleneck is affecting expected hardware flows into China. (startupnews.fyi)
U.S. approvals for some Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices artificial-intelligence chip exports to China have slowed to months as staffing losses hit the agency that signs off on them. (finance.yahoo.com) A Bloomberg analysis cited by Yahoo Finance said the Bureau of Industry and Security has lost 101 employees since 2024, a 19% reduction, while license turnaround times stretched to 76 days in the first half of 2025 from 38 days in 2023. (finance.yahoo.com) The bottleneck lands on chips Washington had recently moved back into a case-by-case licensing system. On January 13, 2026, the Bureau of Industry and Security said it would review export applications for Nvidia H200, Advanced Micro Devices MI325X, and similar chips for China if applicants met new security conditions. (bis.gov) That matters because these are the processors companies use to train and run artificial-intelligence systems, and China remains a major market even after years of tightening controls. Nvidia said on April 15, 2025 that its H20 chip for China had generated an estimated $12 billion to $15 billion in 2024 revenue. (cnbc.com) The H20 was Nvidia’s China-specific version of its Hopper family, built with slower links so it could fit earlier U.S. rules. Nvidia said on April 15, 2025 that Washington had told it on April 9 that H20 exports to China would require a license, and the company disclosed a $5.5 billion quarterly charge tied to those shipments. (cnbc.com) The staffing problem is colliding with a broader policy shift under President Donald Trump. The January 2026 rule followed Trump’s December 8, 2025 announcement that the United States would allow H200-class chips to approved Chinese customers under controlled conditions. (bis.gov) Bloomberg’s account said Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler has been personally examining nearly every license application, adding another choke point as the bureau also handles tariff probes and Middle East chip deals. Those Middle East licenses can require deal-by-deal review rather than a standard template. (finance.yahoo.com) The result is that policy on paper is moving faster than hardware in practice. Companies can have customers, product variants and a legal path to apply, but without staffed reviewers at the Bureau of Industry and Security, the chips still do not ship. (finance.yahoo.com)
