The U.S. Green Light: In December, the Trump administration authorized NVIDIA to sell the H200—one of its most powerful AI GPUs—to Chinese tech giants. The U.S. Commerce Department recently cleared roughly 10 major Chinese firms (including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com) to buy them.
The “Strings Attached” Problem: The U.S. approval came with major regulatory caveats. Under terms formalized in January, every H200 chip destined for China must first pass through U.S. territory for third-party inspection, and NVIDIA must pay a 25% fee on every sale to the U.S. Treasury.
Beijing’s Push for Self-Reliance: Instead of accepting these conditions and remaining dependent on American hardware, the Chinese government has actively “dragged its feet” and discouraged its domestic tech giants from placing orders. Beijing is instead pushing its companies to buy domestic alternatives, such as Huawei’s Ascend AI chips, to break the U.S. chokepoint and achieve long-term technological sovereignty 