The US’ Trump administration formally gave NVIDIA the go-ahead to sell its H200 Chips to China. But, as these things go, that approval wasn’t without its own set of caveats.
In addition to NVIDIA promising to give 25% of all H200 sales in China to the coffers of the Trump administration, the latter now says that the chips will need to be reviewed by a third-party testing lab, in order to confirm their technical AI capabilities before they can be shipped out. Further, Chinese companies that purchase the AI chips may not receive more than 50% of the total amount of chips sold to US customers.
Reuters reports that NVIDIA will also need to certify that there are enough H200 chips in the US, while Chinese customers must demonstrate “sufficient security procedures”, as well as prove that said chips will not be used for military purposes in any way, shape, or form. These rules are new, and weren’t previously part of the initial agreement.
H200 Demand Overwhelming
In light of the approval, Chinese technology companies have already placed orders for more than two million units of the H200 chips, priced around US$27,000 (~RM110,000) a piece. That’s more than NVIDIA’s current inventory of 700,000 units.
To that end, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, says that his company is already ramping up production of H200 chips to meet the demands of its Chinese customers.
As a quick reminder, despite the many trade restrictions and sanctions on the chip, many Chinese companies have found ways to circumvent these restrictions and get their hands on the coveted H200 chips. For that matter, the surge in demand is also happening despite the ongoing tit-for-tat between the two superpowers, as well as the perceived insults by China from the US; the Asian economic giant reportedly held emergency meetings with several of its major tech companies at the end of last year, in order to assess their demands for the H200 chips.
(Source: Reuters)
