The U.S. government has granted giant chipmaker Nvidia permission to sell its advanced artificial intelligence processors in China — provided that there is sufficient supply of those processors in the U.S. — the Department of Commerce announced on January 13. According to BBC News, the H200, Nvidia's second-most-advanced semiconductor, had been restricted by the administration of Donald Trump over concerns it would give China's technology industry and military an edge over the U.S.
In December 2025, Trump announced that he would allow Nvidia to sell the chips to certain customers in China — while collecting a 25% cut of the sales. Nvidia's spokesperson told the BBC that the company welcomed the move, saying it would benefit U.S. manufacturing and jobs. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security said the revised export policy applies both to Nvidia's H200 chips and to less advanced processors.
Chinese customers must demonstrate "sufficient security procedures" and cannot use the chips for military purposes. Nvidia's Blackwell processor — widely considered the world's most advanced AI semiconductor — remains blocked from sale in China. From a supply chain perspective, this decision significantly reshapes the supply dynamics of the global AI hardware market.
From a supply chain perspective, Chinese demand for the H200 adds further pressure on TSMC production capacity allocation, on SK Hynix and Micron's HBM3e memory supply, and on CoWoS packaging bottlenecks. For U.S. data center operators, the "sufficient supply" precondition implies an allocation regime with unclear priority ordering. Nvidia is seeking to preserve long-term access to the Chinese market and maintain ecosystem dominance — while navigating a narrow corridor between Beijing's domestic chip ecosystem (particularly Huawei Ascend) and Washington's export controls.
