The Commerce Department cleared a Chinese company called New Matrix to assemble Nvidia H200 chips into AI servers, but its listed office in Beijing stands empty, The New York Times reported in an investigation by Ana Swanson, Kalley Huang and Keith Bradsher. The Verge cited the report on Saturday, Nov. 7.
The Times described the listed address, in an industrial park on the northwest fringe of Beijing, as “a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be.” The building’s company directory does not include the firm, and staff at the park’s property management office said they had no record of it, the Times reported. New Matrix was created 17 months ago, and its website names no staff, according to the report.
Two of New Matrix’s primary owners appear in the records of companies connected to Wise Road, a Chinese private equity firm, and its founder, Li Bin, according to the data platform WireScreen, the Times reported. The U.S. added Wise Road to the Commerce Department’s entity list in 2024. Li is also chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup, a state-owned technology group, the Times said. Two analysts told the Times they believed New Matrix may be a front for firms associated with Wise Road.
The Times said New Matrix is the second company approved to handle H200 chips that does not appear to have a physical presence at its listed address. A Times reporter who visited the listed address of another approved firm, Maginfra, in September found it appeared deserted. Analysts told the paper they believed Maginfra was an offshoot of Inspur, which is on the entity list. The Times also reported that other approved buyers have ties through their owners to Chinese military suppliers.
The report does not say whether any H200 chips have been delivered to New Matrix or Maginfra. Maginfra and two other companies did not respond to the Times’ requests for comment, according to the report.
Liza Tobin, a former China director at the White House National Security Council, told the Times she had “a ton of concerns” that neither Commerce nor Nvidia was doing the needed due diligence on licensing terms.
The Times said Nvidia currently sells only small amounts of H200 chips to China, where Beijing has been slow to approve purchases. About 600,000 H200 chips are stored in Hong Kong awaiting shipment to the mainland, Reuters reported last week, as AITD covered. Separately, Nvidia’s board said Sunday it was opening an investigation into CEO Jensen Huang’s ties to an executive at Megaspeed, a company the Times has reported on.
Sources
- The New York Times (Chinese edition, bilingual): U.S. cleared Nvidia chips to Chinese firms with empty offices and troubling ties, by Ana Swanson, Kalley Huang and Keith Bradsher (November 9, 2026 posting)
- The Business Times (New York Times syndication): Empty offices, ties to blacklisted firms: Inside the Chinese companies the US cleared for Nvidia chips (November 8, 2026)
- The Verge: The US let Nvidia sell chips to an empty office in China (November 7, 2026)
- AI Tech Daily: About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval (November 6, 2026)
- AI Tech Daily: Nvidia board probes CEO Jensen Huang’s ties to alleged Chinese intelligence asset (November 9, 2026)