NVIDIA is in talks with US authorities over licence terms to ship H200 AI chips to Chinese firms.
NVIDIA is in discussions with US authorities over the conditions attached to licences that would allow China’s ByteDance to purchase its H200 artificial intelligence chips, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The US government indicated about two weeks ago that it was prepared to approve the export licence, the source said. However, NVIDIA has not agreed to certain proposed conditions, including Know Your Customer requirements intended to ensure the chips are not diverted for unauthorised uses.
More broadly, NVIDIA is negotiating licence terms covering shipments of its H200 chips to several Chinese companies, according to the source and two others familiar with the discussions. The talks centre on how compliance requirements would be implemented in practice.
NVIDIA said it acts as an intermediary between regulators and customers and must operate within official restrictions. A company spokesperson said it could not unilaterally accept or reject licence conditions, adding that while customer verification is important, conditions must remain commercially workable. Otherwise, buyers could shift to alternative suppliers outside the US.
Chinese regulators have already given preliminary approval for ByteDance, Tencent, Alibaba and AI start-up DeepSeek to import the chips, although final regulatory details are still being finalised.
The outcome of the negotiations will determine whether shipments move forward under a framework that applies similar terms to comparable products from companies including AMD and Intel.
