NVIDIA has supplied 10,000 H200 chips to Chinese companies ByteDance and Tencent, with additional shipments anticipated.

      ByteDance and Tencent are said to have started receiving deliveries of NVIDIA's H200 artificial intelligence chips in China, representing a notable development in the ongoing technological rivalry between Beijing and Washington.

      As reported by the Financial Times, both companies have acquired around 10,000 H200 processors each in recent weeks, following China's approval for the chips to enter the mainland. These shipments may provide two of China's largest tech firms with enhanced computing capabilities to train sophisticated AI models and create AI agents that can compete with top U.S. systems.

      This news follows months of speculation regarding whether China would permit approved firms to import the H200 chips, even after the U.S. government relaxed its own export restrictions.

      H200 chips arrive at Chinese tech giants

      The H200 is NVIDIA's second-most powerful AI GPU, ranked just below the newer Blackwell B200. While the B200 is still barred from being exported to China, the H200 offers significantly greater AI computing power than the H20, which was previously one of the most capable NVIDIA chips accessible to approved Chinese clients.

      The initial U.S. restrictions on H200 sales to China stemmed from concerns that advanced NVIDIA processors could aid in the advancement of China’s military technologies. This policy was revised in December 2025, permitting NVIDIA to sell H200 chips to vetted Chinese firms.

      Reuters later indicated that China had sanctioned the import of several hundred thousand H200 processors. ByteDance and Tencent were among ten Chinese companies reportedly authorized to purchase these chips, with each firm potentially able to procure up to 100,000 processors.

      The recent shipments indicate that these approvals are starting to materialize as actual hardware deliveries. Reports suggest that China has instructed companies to keep the majority of their H200 processors outside of mainland China, instead routing them to Hong Kong. This presents a unique situation, as neither ByteDance nor Tencent are believed to operate data centers in Hong Kong at present.

      China still aims for its own AI chips

      These shipments are crucial as NVIDIA's hardware continues to vastly outperform China's domestic alternatives, even as Beijing intensifies efforts to push its technology firms toward locally produced processors.

      Huawei currently leads the domestic AI chip market in China; however, industry analysts mentioned in the reports assert that NVIDIA remains far ahead in terms of performance. Thus, access to H200 processors could grant Chinese firms additional computing resources while domestic chipmakers continue to work on alternatives.

      China's hesitance to heavily depend on foreign processors also sheds light on the government's reported desire for companies to maintain most of the newly authorized NVIDIA hardware outside mainland China. At the same time, Beijing is striving to lessen its reliance on U.S. technology and bolster its own semiconductor industry.

      For NVIDIA, this development reopens a significant market while keeping the company’s most advanced Blackwell hardware off-limits. For Chinese AI firms, access to the H200 could speed up model development during a period where computing power is critical in the AI competition.

      More H200 shipments are anticipated, with other approved Chinese companies likely to receive similar-sized deliveries. Whether these processors serve as a temporary solution or become integral to China’s AI infrastructure will depend on how Washington and Beijing navigate the next phase of export restrictions.