Nvidia H200 chips reach China in small shipments, FT reports

Small shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips, the company's most powerful AI processors, have begun entering mainland China, according to the Financial Times. Two unnamed sources familiar with the situation told the FT that ByteDance and Tencent have each acquired around 10,000 H200 chips in recent weeks. Other Chinese tech firms may soon receive similar shipments, the report added.

While the U.S. has given the companies permission to purchase up to 100,000 H200 chips each, Beijing's stance is for these firms to keep the hardware outside the mainland to bolster the growth of homegrown chipmakers. The FT report notes that Chinese regulators have instructed companies to ship the processors to Hong Kong, which is not under mainland China's customs jurisdiction, and use them there.

Earlier this month, a high-ranking U.S. official told Congress that a limited number of Nvidia H200 chips had been delivered to China. However, Reuters could not independently confirm the report, and Nvidia has not yet commented on the matter.