The US government opened the door for Chinese companies to buy Nvidia’s coveted H200 AI chips. Beijing, it turns out, would rather they didn’t walk through it.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer confirmed that the Commerce Department has approved roughly 10 Chinese companies to purchase Nvidia’s H200 chips. The list includes some of China’s biggest tech names: Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com. And yet, as of mid-May 2026, not a single shipment has been completed.
The approvals that nobody used
The Trump administration shifted its H200 review process from a presumption of denial to a case-by-case evaluation starting in late 2025 and early 2026. That was a meaningful policy pivot, one that suggested Washington was willing to let some commercial activity flow again.
Greer noted that whether these purchases ultimately happen is a “sovereign decision” for China. Reports indicate that Beijing is actively discouraging, if not outright blocking, its domestic tech companies from completing these transactions. The reason is straightforward: China wants to build its own semiconductor ecosystem, and buying American chips doesn’t exactly accelerate that goal.
A summit that said everything by saying nothing
A Trump-Xi summit took place in Beijing in May 2026, and chip export controls did not feature prominently in the discussions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended related conversations around the summit, but the absence of chip talk from the main agenda is telling.
What this means for investors
The stalled H200 sales carry real financial weight. China’s major tech companies represent potentially billions in chip demand. Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com are all racing to build AI infrastructure, and the H200 is among the most capable chips available for training large language models. If these deals eventually go through, they could meaningfully boost Nvidia’s revenue in future quarters.
Investors should watch whether any of these 10 approved companies actually complete a purchase in the coming months, because that single data point will tell you more about the future of US-China tech relations than any summit communique.