China Approves Import of First Batch of NVIDIA H200 AI Processors
China has approved the import of the first batch of NVIDIA's H200 artificial intelligence processors following the license granted by the U.S. government last year. It is reported that hundreds of thousands of chips have been allocated to three major internet companies.
Approval Process and Distribution
According to a Reuters report citing two informed sources, the Chinese government has approved the first import batch of NVIDIA's H200 AI processors. This approval came after NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang's visit to the country last week. It is reported that the sale of hundreds of thousands of H200 chips has been permitted in the initial phase.
The U.S. government had allowed the sale of these high-performance processors to vetted and approved Chinese companies in late last year. According to sources, the chips in the first batch have been primarily allocated to three major unnamed Chinese internet companies. The government is reportedly also evaluating future applications.
Technological Restrictions and Domestic Efforts
The export of NVIDIA's most powerful AI processor, the Blackwell B200 model, to China remains restricted. Despite this, previous reports indicated that the value of this and other high-level NVIDIA chips reaching China via the black market has exceeded $1 billion.
The H200 is NVIDIA's second most powerful AI processor after the B200. While the B200 is reported to be up to ten times faster than its predecessor in some tasks, the H200 is known to be significantly more capable than the H20 model approved in December. China had initially opposed the H200 approval, prioritizing domestically developed semiconductors.
The country is striving to become self-sufficient in AI chips and infrastructure. In this field, Huawei currently provides the best processors available locally. However, industry experts believe NVIDIA's technology is still far ahead of the current production capabilities of Huawei or other Chinese companies. This dynamic in the global AI race is closely related to other developments, such as ASML's record orders and the return on investment analyses by major tech companies.
The Expanding Landscape of Global Competition
This development forms a complex part of the global competition over technology supply chains and AI hegemony. On the other hand, the UK's steps to train its workforce and restructuring moves focused on AI by giants like Amazon show the industry is rapidly evolving. In specific fields like finance, companies like Pagaya Technologies are evaluating growth potential with AI.
