Trump’s approval of H200 exports follows a meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and introduces a new mechanism for moving high-end GPUs into China. Chips manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan would be imported into the United States for security reviews, taxed at 25% and then re-exported to approved Chinese buyers. U.S. officials told The Information that the arrangement was designed as a middle ground whereby Blackwell remains off-limits, but a complete ban on H200 shipments was viewed as likely to accelerate China’s domestic chip development.
Chinese regulators, meanwhile, are considering restrictions of their own. One proposal would cap the amount of Nvidia hardware a company can buy relative to its existing and planned purchases of domestic accelerators. Another would bar H200 use in sectors regarded as strategically sensitive, including finance and energy. If adopted, these measures would be communicated through informal “window guidance”, the same method authorities used earlier this year when they urged companies to avoid Nvidia hardware and prioritize suppliers such as Huawei.
If Beijing authorizes H200 imports, demand is expected to be substantial. Companies are said to have begun preliminary discussions with Nvidia about potential orders after Bloomberg first reported in November that the U.S. was weighing approval, and, according to Reuters , the likes of Alibaba and ByteDance are said to be “keen” to begin purchasing Nvidia’s chips. For now, China’s policymakers are attempting to determine how to meet short-term AI training needs without undermining the long-term push for semiconductor self-reliance
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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/semiconductors/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/china-weighs-import-limits-on-nvidias-h200-after-us-export-rules-relaxed#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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