NVIDIA is now shipping its H200 AI chips to China
What's the story
NVIDIA's powerful H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips have started making their way to China, a US official has confirmed. Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that "there have been minimal exports of any H200s to China so far." He added that shipments have begun but in very small numbers.
Approval granted
ZTE among companies that received US approval for AI chip
According to Reuters, a unit of telecoms gear maker ZTE Corp and two other Chinese companies have received US approval to buy advanced AI chips from NVIDIA and AMD.
This comes after the Commerce Department had cleared around 10 Chinese firms in May for purchasing the H200.
At that time, Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance were among those approved but no deliveries had been made yet.
Trade tensions
Sale of NVIDIA's H200 chips to China a major issue
The sale of NVIDIA's H200 chips to China has become a major issue in the ongoing US-China tech war.
The US is trying to restrict China's access to advanced chips that could be used for military purposes.
House Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, Representative Gregory Meeks, criticized the Commerce Department for not adding any Chinese companies to an export control list since October, the longest period in over a decade.
Regulatory gaps
Republican representative raises concerns over potential loopholes
Kessler defended the Commerce Department's position, stressing the importance of enforcing existing restrictions on Chinese companies.
However, he was criticized by Republican Representative Bill Huizenga for a potential loophole that may have let subsidiaries of Chinese firms outside China to receive even more advanced NVIDIA Blackwell chips.
Huizenga questioned why the guidance said these companies could keep any Blackwell chips "that they may have gotten through either smuggling or other loopholes."