A senior US official has confirmed that Nvidia has started shipping a small number of H200 AI chips to China, marking the first deliveries under recently approved export licences amid continuing US-China technology tensions.
Nvidia has begun shipping a limited number of its advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to China after receiving US export approvals, according to Reuters, marking the first confirmed deliveries since Washington eased restrictions on selected Chinese buyers.
Jeffrey Kessler, the US Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, told lawmakers that only a “very few” H200 chips had been exported to China so far. He said shipments had started but remained minimal.
The development follows Reuters‘ earlier report that several Chinese companies, including ZTE, had received licences to purchase advanced AI chips from Nvidia and AMD. Earlier approvals also covered around 10 Chinese firms, including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance, although deliveries had not begun at the time.
The shipments come as sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips remain at the centre of the technology rivalry between the United States and China. Washington has tightened export controls since 2022 to restrict Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors that could support military applications.
During the congressional hearing, Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks criticised the Trump administration’s export policy, saying it had “turned export controls into a bargaining chip” in negotiations with China and weakened existing safeguards.
Kessler defended the Commerce Department’s approach, saying the current restrictions remain in force and that additional AI chip regulations are being developed. He also acknowledged concerns over possible smuggling and loopholes involving more advanced AI processors.
“There have been minimal exports of any H200s to China so far,” Kessler told lawmakers.
