According to a Reuters report on January 28, China has given the "green light" for the first import of Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips. This is seen as a pragmatic shift in policy focus between meeting domestic AI computing power needs and promoting local semiconductor development.
Who Received the First Approval: More Clarity on Scale and Destination
The report, citing several insiders, states that the main entities approved for the initial procurement are three major internet companies: ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, with a combined approval to purchase more than 400,000 H200 chips; other companies are in the queue for subsequent batch approvals.
Notably, this approval coincides with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's visit to China this week. The market thus interprets this as a clearer signal of an "actual clearance."
Why Now: From "Port Restrictions" to Policy Shift
Previously, there was uncertainty about whether the H200 could enter the Chinese market. Reuters had reported that authorities had informed customs agents that the H200 was "not allowed to enter," making it difficult for outsiders to determine if this was a temporary measure or a more formal restriction.
Another critical background came from policy changes on the U.S. side: Reuters reported in mid-January that the U.S. had "officially cleared" the H200 for sale to China, but with conditions such as third-party testing reviews, export ratio limits, and requirements for Chinese customers to prove safety procedures and refrain from military use.
Why is the H200 More Sensitive: Performance Gap and Supply-Demand Imbalance
Reuters describes the H200 as Nvidia's "second strongest" AI chip. The report points out that its performance is about six times that of the H20, which was previously available for sale in China, and while local Chinese manufacturers' products are closer to the H20 level, there is still a significant gap with the H200.
Demand is also rising rapidly. Reuters mentions that Chinese tech companies have reportedly ordered more than 2 million H200 pieces, far exceeding Nvidia's available stock; this means that even if the first approved shipments land, subsequent questions of "who can get them, how many, and based on what criteria" will remain focal points for the market.
Subsequent Highlights: Approval Pace and the Possibility of "Domestic Quotas"
Reuters also mentioned that relevant departments had discussed making the "purchase of a certain proportion of domestic chips" a condition for approving the import of high-end overseas chips. If this mechanism is implemented, it might lead companies to form a "import + domestic" strategy when expanding data centers and procuring computing power.
On the stock front, Investing.com shows that Nvidia's stock price rose about 1.10% on the day the related news was released.
