About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval

About 600,000 of Nvidia’s advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips are stored in Hong Kong awaiting shipment to mainland China, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters in an exclusive published Thursday, Nov. 5, as Beijing withholds approval for large-scale imports despite demand from technology firms.

China has allowed some of the chips to enter in recent months, three people familiar with the matter said. Several major Chinese internet companies have each obtained about 10,000 H200 chips in the past few months, one of the people said. Three people said small quantities had been shipped via intermediaries and indirect routes without specifying how many. Beijing has yet to approve large-volume imports into mainland China, the people said.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission did not respond to Reuters requests for comment. Neither did Nvidia or Chinese tech companies Alibaba, ByteDance, DeepSeek and Tencent, Reuters reported.

The H200 is not Nvidia’s newest AI processor, Reuters said, but it has capabilities Chinese alternatives have yet to match, making it useful for training models especially with Nvidia’s software. With authorized supply constrained, Chinese buyers have turned to intermediaries, pushing up unofficial prices. An eight-card H200 server was offered for more than 6 million yuan in mainland China by the end of October, about three times its price a year earlier, one person said. Servers using Nvidia’s newer Blackwell chips, which fall under U.S. export controls, were offered for more than 20 million yuan apiece, the person added.

The United States barred H200 exports to China before the Trump administration last year allowed Nvidia to sell the chips to approved Chinese customers after trade talks, Reuters said. Beijing has imposed its own import constraints over dependence on U.S. technology. The Information reported in July that Chinese officials told firms including Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek they could get limited H200 approvals totaling fewer than 200,000 chips and should prioritize Chinese processors for inference, Reuters said.

Chinese firms have also pursued overseas compute leases. AI Tech Daily covered Tencent’s reported Oracle Southeast Asia chip lease and the later reported cancellation.

About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval

Sources