Beijing reportedly limiting H200 purchases to those with ‘special circumstances’ — sources suggest only university R&D labs can acquire Nvidia GPUs in China

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .

(Image credit: Getty / VCG) Share Share by: Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Flipboard Share this article Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google President Donald Trump allowed Nvidia to sell its H200 data center GPUs to China last month, but Beijing stepped on the brakes. The central government instructed its tech giants to temporarily halt their orders as it debated how it can provide its AI developers the necessary powerful chips they need to make train their cutting edge models while simultaneously supporting local chip manufacturers.

Now, some sources have told The Information that the Chinese government will only allow the purchase of these chips for “special circumstances,” saying that these are probably limited to university research and development labs only. That restriction is going to be a blow to Nvidia’s dream of making it big in China again, especially after its market share fell to essentially zero from a high of 95% in just a matter of years.

When the news broke that the White House will finally allow Nvidia to sell its H200 chips to China, Beijing immediately set an emergency meeting with its big tech companies to assess the demand for the advanced AI GPUs and how they will impact the CCP’s target of both AI supremacy and semiconductor sovereignty. Even though these two targets seemingly go hand-in-hand, they’re contradictory due to the current situation in China’s semiconductor industry.

Beijing tells companies to pause H200 purchases

Key considerations

• Investor positioning can change fast
• Volatility remains possible near catalysts
• Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows

Reference reading

• https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
• https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/beijing-reportedly-limiting-h200-purchases-to-those-with-special-circumstances-sources-suggest-only-university-r-and-d-labs-can-acquire-nvidia-gpus-in-china#main
• https://www.tomshardware.com

More on this site

• NVIDIA DGX Spark and DGX Station Power the Latest Open-Source and Frontier Models From the Desktop
• AMD's upcoming Ryzen AI Max+ 392 hot on the heels of 9800X3D in early benchmarks — New Strix Halo APU almost matches Ryzen 7 beast in multi-core performance
• Beijing reportedly limiting H200 purchases to those with ‘special circumstances’ — sources suggest only university R&D labs can acquire Nvidia GPUs in China
• NVIDIA Rubin Platform, Open Models, Autonomous Driving: NVIDIA Presents Blueprint for the Future at CES
• GlobalFoundries acquires ARC and RISC-V IP from Synopsys — company gains critical CPU IP as it grows beyond being a mere chipmaker

Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.