China is preparing to approve the import of Nvidia Corp.’s (NASDAQ:NVDA) H200 artificial intelligence chips for select commercial customers as soon as this quarter, according to people familiar with the matter.
The move represents a potential multi-billion dollar windfall for the Santa Clara-based chipmaker, which saw its 95% market share in the country crater to nearly zero following a series of U.S. export bans.
Chinese officials are reportedly drafting guidelines that would allow private-sector giants like Alibaba Group Holding and ByteDance to procure the H200 for AI model training.
However, the approval comes with strict caveats: the chips will be barred from use in the military, state-owned enterprises, and critical government infrastructure—mirroring previous restrictions placed on Micron and Apple products.
The shift follows a pivotal policy reversal by U.S. President Donald Trump in December 2025, which granted Nvidia permission to export the Hopper-generation H200 to "approved customers" in exchange for a 25% surcharge remitted to the U.S. Treasury.
While the H200 is roughly 18 months behind Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell and Rubin architectures, it remains nearly six times more powerful than the "downsized" H20 chips previously available in the Chinese market.