Chinese officials have told the country’s largest technology companies, including Alibaba Group Holding, that they can begin preparing orders for Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chips, signalling that Beijing is close to formally approving imports of key components needed to run advanced AI systems.
Regulators have recently granted in-principle approval for Alibaba, Tencent Holdings and ByteDance to move to the next stage of preparations for potential purchases, according to people familiar with the matter. The sources said the companies are now cleared to discuss details such as the quantities they would require, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private, News.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.
As part of the approval process, Beijing is expected to encourage the firms to purchase a certain volume of domestically produced chips, the people said, although no specific quota has yet been set.
Following the developments, Nvidia shares rose by as much as 2.3% in premarket trading, while the American depositary receipts of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. gained 1.3%.
The discussions signals Beijing is moving ahead with plans to approve shipments of the H200 — a last-generation semiconductor that’s been thrust into the heart of sensitive US-China trade negotiations. It shows the government is prioritizing the needs of the major Chinese hyperscalers from Alibaba to Tencent, which are spending billions of dollars to build the data centers they need to develop and operate AI services.
That would mark a major win for Nvidia, which has angled to resume business with the world’s largest semiconductor arena. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has said that the AI chip segment alone could generate $50 billion in the coming years. In its absence, local rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co. and Cambricon Technologies Corp. have thrived and plan to sharply increase production.
Beijing’s guidance to its largest tech firms runs counter to reports in recent weeks that the government was blocking H200 shipments. Last week, the Financial Times reported suppliers of parts for the chip had paused production. Representatives for Nvidia declined to comment, while the Commerce Ministry didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment. Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
The H200 is an older-generation chip that the Trump administration has said can be exported to China, even as it restricts sales of leading-edge components on national security grounds. Nvidia is the leading maker of artificial intelligence accelerators — the chips that help develop and run AI models — which are highly prized by the world’s data center operators.
China plans to approve some imports of H200 chips as soon as this quarter, Bloomberg News has previously reported, though they would be barred from sensitive agencies and critical infrastructure — a key designation that remains to be defined. That reflects the enormous demand for AI chips that stems from a Beijing-led push to develop the technology, as well as the inability of local chipmakers like Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to make enough of them.
Alibaba and ByteDance had earlier told Nvidia in private that they are interested in ordering more than 200,000 units each of the H200. Both companies — alongside prominent Chinese startups, including DeepSeek — are rapidly upgrading their models to compete with OpenAI and other US rivals.