Small Amount of Nvidia AI Chips Shipped to China With US License

A small number of Nvidia Corp.’s H200 artificial intelligence chips have been shipped to customers in China after winning US approval, the Trump administration official who oversees export control programs confirmed.

Jeffrey Kessler, under secretary of commerce for industry and security, said Tuesday that a “trivial” number of the Nvidia processors were shipped to China, though he declined to offer specifics on the amount of chips or the buyers.

“For the American people, the bottom line is very few shipments against licenses for H200s and equivalents have taken place,” Kessler said during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over US export control programs. “Very small quantity of chips, so it’s trivial.”

Nvidia’s H200 was cleared for export to China by President Donald Trump in December, a move that marked a significant easing of US export restrictions aimed at reining in Beijing’s AI ambitions. It was the most powerful AI chip on the market — with superior memory capacity and bandwidth — until the introduction of the company’s next generation Blackwell models in late 2024.

Spokespeople for Nvidia didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

During the hearing, Republican Committee Chairman Brian Mast urged Kessler to take further steps to keep China from getting its hands on Nvidia’s more powerful line of Blackwell chips. Mast called for adding more Chinese entities to a Commerce Department blacklist, which lawmakers said has not happened since October 2025.

Mast pressed Kessler on whether Chinese tech giants — including ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc., Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. — should be subject to further restrictions by the Commerce Department. All four companies are on a Pentagon watch list of entities believed by the US to aid China’s military, but only YMTC is on a blacklist overseen by Kessler’s office.

In January, the Commerce Department issued a rule formalizing Trump’s H200 decision that limited sales to verified Chinese buyers. The regulation specifically requires companies seeking US export licenses for the chips to confirm that the technology won’t go to a Chinese military purpose or end user, including for nuclear, missile, chemical or biological weapons.

Kessler said he agrees with the Pentagon and thinks BIS has to be “very careful” when allowing exports to those companies. He did not specify whether BIS is weighing more formal action the three firms that are not blacklisted by Commerce.