16 July 2025, China, Peking: Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaks to journalists. During a trip to China, Huang gave a speech at the opening of the supply chain trade fair and met Chinese politicians. Photo: Johannes Neudecker/dpa (Photo by Johannes Neudecker/picture alliance via Getty Images)
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A top U.S. trade official said on Tuesday that “very few” of Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chips have been shipped to China and Hong Kong.
“The bottom line is very few shipments against licenses for H200s and equivalents have taken place. It’s a very small quantity of chips,” Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffery Kessler said at a congressional hearing.
The remark is a sign that H200 shipments to China have restarted, potentially boosting Nvidia’s sales even higher. Since last year, Nvidia has excluded any potential Chinese AI chip revenue from its forecasts and CEO Jensen Huang said on CNBC in May that he told investors to “expect nothing” from Chinese sales.
An Nvidia representative declined to comment.
Nvidia has long sought to ship its AI chips to China, which is one of the largest markets for AI development, but has found itself caught up in a trade and technology war between Washington and Beijing, with most of the company’s products under export restrictions to China.
In December, President Donald Trump said that the U.S. government would approve China sales of the H200 AI chip in exchange for a 25% cut. Licenses for the chips, which some in the administration say can be used for military purposes, were issued earlier this year.
The H200 is an older Nvidia chip in the Hopper generation, while American companies are currently using faster and more powerful Blackwell chips.
Kessler said that the U.S. government assessed companies that want the H200 chips on a case-by-case basis, with applicants needing to meet national security requirements and submit to inspections to make sure the chips are compliant.
“There are cases where we deny the license applications we receive,” Kessler said.
But it remains unclear whether China will ultimately approve the import of large quantities of the chips. Without Nvidia chips, Chinese firms will be forced use domestic alternatives, which are considered inferior for AI training.
