U.S. licenses ZTE to buy Nvidia H200 AI chips, but Chinese restrictions may limit impact
The United States has granted Chinese telecom giant ZTE and server firm Maginfra approval to purchase Nvidia's last-generation H200 'Hopper' AI chips, joining a group of about 10 Chinese companies including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com that have received such clearance. A Kingsoft Cloud subsidiary also reportedly got approval to buy AMD accelerators equivalent to the H200. However, Chinese regulators may block imports as Beijing promotes domestic chip production, particularly Huawei's alternatives. The U.S. currently allows Hopper-family chip sales with a 25% tariff on a case-by-case basis, but not Blackwell chips. A U.S. trade official testified that very few shipments against H200 licenses have actually occurred, suggesting the practical impact may be limited. Chinese firms had over two million H200 chips on order six months ago, indicating continued strong demand for AI silicon despite domestic production initiatives.
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