Commerce Department tweaks export rules, paving the way for Nvidia to ship H200s to China
US President Donald Trump’s call for Nvidia and its peers to be able to sell advanced AI chips to Chinese customers has evolved from the realm of social media posts to official policy paperwork.
The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security revised its export license review policy for certain semiconductors, laying out what kinds of chips Nvidia and other semi companies will be allowed to ship to China and the terms of this arrangement.
For chips with a total processing power of less than 21,000 and a DRAM bandwidth of less than 6,500 gigabytes per second, a group which includes Nvidia’s H200 as well as AMD’s MI325X, “this final rule specifies certain conditions that, if satisfied, allow for license applicants to move from a presumption of denial to a case-by-case license review policy for exports from the United States destined to China or Macau.”
Two of the key stipulations include:
H200s are the most advanced chips from the Hopper line, which was Nvidia’s leading offering prior to Blackwell.
While Trump’s Truth Social post on December 8 indicated that 25% of the proceeds from sales of these chips to China would go to the US government, there is no reference to such a provision in this particular document.
Chinese buyers have reportedly put in orders for more than 2 million H200s, making this a potential $54 billion sales channel for the world’s most valuable company.
However, the willingness of Chinese officials to allow that many processors to be imported at a time when they’re also focused on developing their domestic chip capabilities remains an open question.
