China Eases Restrictions on Nvidia H200 Chips Amid AI Competition
China has eased its restrictions on Nvidia's H200 chips, allowing limited quantities to enter mainland China as part of Beijing's efforts to aid its leading AI companies in their pursuit of catching up with US rivals.
The move allows Bytedance and Tencent to each receive about 10,000 H200 processors, while a few other Chinese tech groups could soon obtain approval for shipments of similar size. However, these chips are at least two generations behind Nvidia's most powerful ones, which remain prohibited due to US export controls.
Chinese regulators have told companies that they can ship the H200 chips to Hong Kong, where they can be used despite the territory lacking sufficient data centers to house them. The licenses permitting shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips to mainland China and Hong Kong are in place, but this still presents a challenge for Chinese tech groups.