The US government has given the green light for about 10 Chinese companies to purchase Nvidia’s H200 AI chips. The catch: none of them have actually received any.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer disclosed on May 15 that export controls on semiconductors weren’t a major talking point during his discussions with Chinese officials in Beijing. He characterized any potential purchases of H200 chips by Chinese firms as a “sovereign decision,” a diplomatic way of saying the ball is in China’s court.
The approvals, the surcharge, and the silence
The list of approved buyers includes Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com, Lenovo, and Foxconn, each eligible to purchase up to 75,000 H200 units.
The approved sales come with a 25% surcharge and mandatory security reviews.
As of mid-May 2026, not a single H200 has crossed the Pacific to any of these approved buyers.
A policy pivot, not a policy reversal
These approvals represent a notable shift from the previous approach under the Trump administration, which initially operated under a blanket denial policy for advanced chip exports to China. The current framework moves to case-by-case evaluations of export licenses.
By calling it a “sovereign decision,” Greer placed the emphasis squarely on China’s own strategic choices rather than on US restrictions. The Chinese Communist Party has been aggressively promoting domestic semiconductor production, with Huawei’s Ascend line of AI chips receiving particular focus, and Beijing encouraging its tech giants to source domestically whenever possible.
What this means for investors
Up to 750,000 H200 units across the approved Chinese firms would represent a massive order book, but an approval that never converts to a shipment is worth exactly nothing to the bottom line.
Investors should watch for two signals: whether any H200 shipments actually occur in the coming months, and whether China’s domestic chip capabilities, particularly Huawei’s next-generation offerings, show meaningful performance improvements.