The US is on the verge of allowing Nvidia to sell its H200 AI GPUs to China, thanks to a change in the Trump administration’s policy. Customers in China will soon be able to buy Nvidia’s powerful H200 GPUs for AI datacenters. The catch is that the US will now be exacting a 25% fee on sales, according to Reuters. Nvidia is facing a massive market hungry for modern AI technology after years of restrictions aimed at choking China’s military capabilities. (Do you hear that sound? It’s coming from security experts collectively grinding their teeth.)
Until now, much of the back-and-forth between the US and China (over AI chips, at least) has centered on Nvidia’s H20 chip, which the company produced with China in mind. The H20 is significantly less powerful than Nvidia’s H100 graphics processors and several times less powerful than Nvidia’s H200. (The H20 is a strong chip for AI training, however.) With the US (and allies) working to prevent China from acquiring the latest AI hardware, Nvidia positioned the H20 as a way to supply customers in China without delivering its most capable chips.
China, meanwhile, appeared concerned about the potential for spying capabilities being built into the H20, further complicating its already awkward position in US-China trade negotiations. (Though it’s also possible China’s concern had more to do with strategy than security.) And Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, sounded the alarm that China was hot on the heels of Nvidia’s more sophisticated hardware. China-based Huawei struggled to keep up with modern technology while facing restrictions that didn’t apply to Western countries.
Credit: Nvidia
Nvidia will likely see a flood of orders from China-based AI companies if the US officially changes its policy. China could block sales of the H200 on its soil, but unless it’s genuinely as concerned about spyware as it claims, there’s good reason to let its businesses take advantage of the hardware. As Tom’s Hardware notes, although China has made significant progress in catching up to other countries in the AI space, companies that use Nvidia’s CUDA software will want the H200 GPUs for their data centers.
The H200 isn’t Nvidia’s newest GPU in the AI space. Nvidia offers the GB200 NVL72 system, which links 72 Blackwell GPUs, and the GB300 NVL72. The latter recently began production, and many customers are already making use of them. Those GPUs, at least for now, don’t appear to be part of the Commerce Department’s planned policy changes.
Update 12/9/25 @ 3:49 p.m.: This story has been updated to reflect the Trump administration’s 25% fee on Nvidia’s H200 GPU exports to China.