Overview
- The Commerce Department approved roughly 10 Chinese firms, including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com, for H200 purchases under a case-by-case policy shift that began in late 2025.
- Each approved buyer can seek up to 75,000 H200 units and approved sales carry a 25% surcharge plus mandatory security reviews, capping initial authorized revenue at roughly $15–$20 billion.
- As of mid-May 2026 not a single approved H200 shipment had been completed because Chinese authorities have been steering domestic firms toward local suppliers such as Huawei’s chip programs.
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined U.S. diplomatic outreach during the Trump‑Xi meetings to push sales but those talks did not produce deliveries and Nvidia shares pulled back on the news.
- Investors and policymakers are watching for the first completed shipment as the single clearest signal that U.S. export approvals will translate into sales, while continued non‑use would show China is prioritizing semiconductor self‑sufficiency and reshape demand forecasts.