Tech giants Alibaba and ByteDance are reportedly ready to place orders for more than 200,000 chips each as soon as approval is granted. The H200 is one generation older than Nvidia’s latest Blackwell AI GPUs, but it is significantly more powerful than the China-tailored H20 and domestic alternatives.
Despite Trump’s approval: China slows imports of Nvidia’s high-performance AI chips
The Chinese government has reportedly instructed domestic technology companies to temporarily halt purchases of Nvidia’s H200 AI chips.
Beijing is currently reviewing the conditions under which imports of these high-performance chips will be allowed, in order to avoid harming its own semiconductor industry, The Information reports. About a month ago, US President Donald Trump announced that Nvidia would be permitted to sell H200 chips to China—an easing of restrictions introduced during the Biden era.
Nvidia is said to be facing strong demand from China, with estimates of more than two million H200 chips for 2026. Beijing now wants to prevent local firms from building up inventories too quickly. Officials are reportedly considering a quota system: anyone buying Nvidia’s H200 would also have to purchase a certain share of domestically produced AI chips.
China’s government caught between AI progress and independence
Beijing faces a dilemma: high-end AI development requires Nvidia’s chips, while the government also wants to promote technological self-reliance. Officials view access to American chips as a temporary solution while domestic manufacturers catch up.
Chinese companies such as Huawei can produce chips for inference—i.e., generating responses from AI models—but they lack the technology needed to train large models. That is why the H200 remains important for China’s AI development. Even the Chinese “miracle” AI-efficiency startup DeepSeek is said to have smuggled Nvidia chips on a large scale.
Beijing pushes domestic equipment and reviews Meta–Manus deal
According to Reuters, chipmakers building fabs already have to prove that at least half of their equipment comes from Chinese suppliers. Over the long term, Beijing is aiming for 100%. The policy appears to be having an effect: China’s largest chip-equipment supplier, Naura Technology, increased revenue by 30% in the first half of 2025.
At the same time, China is also reviewing Meta’s potential acquisition of the AI-agent startup Manus. The concern is that Meta could extract expert AI know-how from China through the deal. Manus briefly moved its headquarters from China to Singapore in the summer to enable US investment.
