US Allows 10 Chinese Companies to Purchase NVIDIA H200 Chips
According to Reuters, the US government has approved 10 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and JD.com, to purchase NVIDIA H200 chips.
This move breaks previous export restrictions on advanced AI chips to China. The H200 is a high-performance GPU from NVIDIA designed for training and inference.
Market Mechanism: The US government is easing export controls, driving demand for AI computing power procurement among Chinese tech giants, with funds flowing to NVIDIA H200 and related supply chains; NVIDIA ($NVDA) saw a short-term increase of 2.28% in after-hours trading, benefiting NVIDIA and the approved Chinese companies, while the chip black market and competing GPU manufacturers face pressure under strict controls.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The US previously imposed strict export controls on advanced AI chips like the H100/H200. The approval for 10 leading Chinese internet companies to purchase these chips continues the pragmatic adjustment path in AI chip regulation initiated during Trump's second term, which saw multiple exemptions for specific companies in 2025.
In terms of capital flow, Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and JD.com will obtain H200 computing power through legal channels, motivated to accelerate their own large model training and inference capabilities, reducing reliance on the black market or low-performance alternatives, while NVIDIA maintains its market share in China through compliant exports.
Similar cases include previous limited exemptions for specific Chinese cloud service providers and the export of "weakened" chips like the NVIDIA H20; the current US-China AI chip supply chain is in a pragmatic game of moving from a comprehensive blockade to selective easing.
Structural Judgment: This fundamentally represents capital concentration driven by regulatory changes. By granting targeted approvals, the US government shifts the pricing power of AI computing from a total embargo to controlled exports, balancing national security with commercial interests, and forcing global chip capital from evading regulations to compliant supply chains, accelerating the transformation of Chinese AI giants from coping with "bottlenecks" to legally acquiring high-performance computing power.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
The more relaxed the controls, the sooner top chips return to Chinese giants.
The longer the embargo, the more valuable selective easing becomes.
When national security makes concessions, commercial computing power lands first.