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It might seem that this command to hold orders came suddenly, but Beijing has already been in discussion with its biggest tech giants following Trump’s reversal on the H200 ban. Despite the directive, several server manufacturers were said to have already placed non-refundable and non-modifiable orders with Nvidia. It’s also reported that the AI chip company is preparing a shipment of 82,000 GPUs , with the hardware expected to arrive by mid-February 2026. This shows that demand for these chips is so high that they’re willing to take the risk, as Beijing is still deciding on how it will approach the influx of these chips.
China holds 'emergency meetings' to discuss Nvidia H200 purchases following export rule change, report claims
Nvidia weighs expanding H200 production as new China orders rush in, report claims
The biggest conundrum the CCP is facing is how it will balance the need to support local chipmaking initiatives without stunting AI development. China has made inroads in semiconductor manufacturing , but its latest chips still cannot compete with Nvidia’s last-generation offerings. One solution to this is to force companies importing foreign chips to purchase a ratio of or maybe even an equal amount of locally built processors. They could then use the domestically made semiconductors for inferencing tasks while reserving the more powerful H200 chips for training. But without an official announcement from Beijing, Chinese tech companies have no choice but to wait to know whether they could purchase Nvidia GPUs — and, if so, how many.
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/beijing-tells-companies-to-pause-h200-purchases-china-govt-deliberating-terms-for-letting-local-tech-companies-buy-us-chips-while-still-growing-homegrown-semiconductors#main
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