Nvidia Corp said it had received permission from the U.S. government to export small quantities of its relatively low-tech H200 artificial intelligence acceleration chip to customers in China, taking a slight step forward in its bid to return to the world's largest semiconductor market. As a leading AI acceleration chip manufacturer, Nvidia said that the approved H200 exports are subject to inspection in the United States and pay a 25% tariff.
However, it is still uncertain whether Beijing will allow the actual import of these chips. The attitude of Chinese regulators remains the decisive variable. For this reason, NVIDIA did not include any revenue from China's data center business in its latest first-quarter performance guidance. Nvidia's stock price was little changed in after-hours trading following the announcement.
Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress told investors on an earnings call that although the U.S. government has approved the export of small quantities of H200 products to some Chinese customers, the company has not yet generated any revenue from this and does not know whether these shipments will eventually be allowed to enter China. The political standoff between China and the United States has severely limited Nvidia's ability to sell its most advanced chips in China. Huang Renxun has said that China's AI chip market is expected to reach about US$50 billion in the next few years, making China a link that cannot be ignored in Nvidia's global growth strategy.
Under the pressure of U.S. export controls, the Chinese government is increasing its support for local chip companies. Key support targets include Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Cambrian Technology Co., Ltd., as well as companies such as Moore Thread and MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co., which were recently listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Kress reiterated the previous judgment of Nvidia executives during the conference call, believing that Chinese chip manufacturers "have the potential to reshape the global AI industry in the long term." At the same time, Bloomberg previously reported that Chinese regulatory authorities have notified leading domestic technology companies such as Alibaba Group to start preparing H200 orders, which is regarded as a signal that Beijing is close to officially releasing the import of such chips that are critical to developing and running AI models.
The H200 approved for export this time belongs to a relatively early generation of GPU products and is one of the types of chips that the US President Donald Trump's administration has determined can be exported to China. Due to national security concerns, the U.S. government continues to impose strict restrictions on higher-performance, newer-generation AI processors, preventing the flow of these advanced chips to the Chinese market. Against the background of the continued escalation of the technological game between China and the United States, Nvidia's progress in selling H200 to China is regarded by the outside world as a highly uncertain but symbolic trial for the global AI industry pattern.
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