THE ESSENTIALS IN 30 SECONDS

  • According to the New York Times, the US has approved roughly two dozen Chinese companies to buy or handle Nvidia H200 chips.
  • Two licensees authorised to build H200 servers, New Matrix and Maginfra, had listed offices that reporters found empty or deserted.
  • The Times links New Matrix's owners to blacklisted fund Wise Road; the Commerce Department says it reviews every application for security risks.

The New York Times published an investigation on November 7 into the Chinese companies that the US Commerce Department has cleared to receive Nvidia's H200 AI processors. According to the newspaper, at least two of the approved firms could not be found at their listed addresses, and several have owners connected to companies on the US Entity List, Washington's trade blacklist. The account below relies on reports summarising the Times article, which sits behind a paywall.

What the Times reports

Citing people familiar with the approvals, the Times says roughly two dozen Chinese companies have been licensed, among them Baidu, BYD and Tesla's Shanghai unit, each cleared to buy tens of thousands of chips.

New Matrix, a Beijing company created 17 months ago and authorised to assemble H200s into AI servers, lists an address in an industrial park on the city's northwest edge. Reporters found an empty shell there. Chinese corporate records reviewed by the Times show that two of its main owners are linked to companies connected to Wise Road, a private equity firm added to the Entity List in 2024. Two analysts consulted by the paper suggested New Matrix could be a front.

Maginfra, another recently created server assembler, had a small locked room with empty desks when the Times visited its listed office in September. Analysts told the paper it appears to be an offshoot of Inspur, a server maker on the Entity List, sharing staff and patents with it. The Times also reports that Zhejiang Yindun Cloud Technology is partly run from a data centre belonging to a cloud provider that has worked for a provincial defence satellite programme. The companies did not respond to the paper's requests for comment.

Responses and context

A spokesman for the Bureau of Industry and Security told the Times that it carefully reviews every application for national security risks. Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said it makes no sense for China's military to rely on American technology and noted that Beijing has strictly limited H200 imports.

President Trump allowed H200 sales to China last December, with a 25% levy for the US government. Actual volumes remain small: the Times reports that H200 shipments to Chinese customers were under 1% of Nvidia's data centre revenue in the quarter ended July. Separately, Reuters reported on November 5 that about 600,000 H200s are waiting in Hong Kong for Chinese import approval. No licence revocation or official inquiry following the report had been announced at the time of writing.