Major Chinese AI labs and hyperscalers are now obtaining the required license to purchase NVIDIA's H200 AI chips, indicating that Jensen's recent visit to Beijing has borne fruit.
DeepSeek, ByteDance, Alibaba & Tencent Among the First to Receive the New China-Compliant AI Chips
NVIDIA has been in a desperate pursuit to get back into China's AI market, as mounting competition from domestic AI chip firms, along with the company's missing "billions in revenue," forced Jensen to step in himself. A few months ago, NVIDIA received approval from the Trump administration to sell its H200 AI chips to China, and the company even agreed to a profit-sharing model, but following this, Beijing took a harsh stance, delaying licensing and regulatory approval. However, a new Reuters report reveals that NVIDIA's H200s might be heading to China soon.
The report claims that major Chinese companies that will gain access to H200 AI chips include DeepSeek, ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent. The initial orders could exceed 400,000 H200 AI GPUs, and it is claimed that total orders from Chinese tech companies are around 2 million chips, indicating that demand for NVIDIA's hardware is immense, despite Hopper being a few years old. However, it is also claimed that Chinese authorities are planning to impose "conditions" on domestic firms that receive NVIDIA's AI chips.
This is indeed a massive breakthrough for NVIDIA and its position in China, given that just a few months ago, Jensen had claimed that the company's market share in the region had "dropped to 0%", and that China revenue guidance would now be excluded. But now, it appears that China is back in the 'game' for NVIDIA, thanks to Jensen's diplomacy over the past few quarters and his efforts to address the "China hawk" narrative. More specifically, Jensen's recent visit to China is said to be the "final catalyst" for H200 chips to flow into the region.
It would be interesting to see how NVIDIA's Hopper chips perform in Chinese AI markets, as it has been reported that frontier AI labs will gain access to immense compute capabilities, something that has been lacking for several months. More importantly, domestic chip options from the likes of Huawei haven't made much of an impact on disrupting NVIDIA's position in China either, which is why local hyperscalers are rushing to get the new H200 GPUs.
About the author: Muhammad Zuhair is a hardware and technology reporter for Wccftech, specializing in the semiconductor industry and the complex interplay between technology, manufacturing, and geopolitics. His coverage focuses on the corporate strategies and technological roadmaps of industry giants like TSMC, NVIDIA, Samsung, and Intel. Zuhair's expertise lies in deconstructing complex topics such as fabrication nodes (e.g., 2nm process), the economic impact of policies like the CHIPS Act, and the strategic development of AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel.
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