Advanced Nvidia AI chips may finally return to China.
Commerce Department to Allow Nvidia to Ship H200 Chips to China as originally reported by Semaforto approved customers in the country. The US will receive a 25% cut of those salesCNBC reported.
The H200 chips are much more advanced than the H20 chips that Nvidia developed specifically for the Chinese market, but the company could only ship H200s that are about 18 months old, Semafor reported.
An Nvidia spokesperson told TechCrunch about the development: “We welcome President Trump’s decision to allow America’s chip industry to compete to support high-paying American jobs and manufacturing. Offering the H200 to approved commercial customers, controlled by the Department of Commerce, strikes a thoughtful balance that’s great for America.”
The report comes a week after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the decision to export those H200 chips to China was in the hands of President Donald Trump.
The decision to send the chips to China conflicts with congressional concerns about national security.
Pete Ricketts, a Republican senator from Nebraska, and Chris Coons, a Democratic senator from Delaware, introduced a bill on December 4 that would blocks the export of advanced artificial intelligence chips; in China for more than two years.
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The Safe and Secure Exports (SAFE) Chips Act would require the Commerce Department to deny any license to export advanced artificial intelligence chips to China for 30 months. It’s unclear when lawmakers will vote on the proposed bill, especially now that the Trump administration has given the go-ahead for the sale of the H200 chips.
While Congress has long been clear about sending advanced AI chips to China — on both sides of the aisle — President Trump is questioning whether or not to allow the exports.
The Trump administration hit chip companies like Nvidia with licensing requirements to ship their chips to China in April, before formally canceling a spillover rule by the Biden administration that would have regulated AI chip exports in May. Over the summer, the U.S. government signaled that companies could begin shipping chips to China if the government obtains 15% cut of all revenueas the tokens became a bargaining chip in trade talks with China.
However, until that point, the market for US-developed chips in China had been strained.
In September, China’s Internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, banned domestic companies from buying Nvidia chips, leaving companies in the country to rely on less advanced domestic chips from Alibaba and Huawei.
On Monday, Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping “responded positively” to the latest news about the H200 at a Post Truth Social.
This story was updated on December 8 when the proposed decision was confirmed.
