About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips are stored in Hong Kong awaiting clearance to move into mainland China, according to an exclusive Reuters report published on Thursday, November 5, 2026. Two people familiar with the matter told the agency that Beijing has yet to approve large-scale imports of the processors, despite demand from Chinese technology firms.
The size of the stockpile, which had not previously been reported, reflects Beijing's reluctance to deepen China's reliance on United States technology — even as demand for AI computing grows rapidly in the country. The information is attributed to Reuters' sources and has not been officially confirmed.
According to the report, China has allowed some of the chips in over recent months: several major Chinese internet companies are said to have received about 10,000 H200 units each. Small quantities have also arrived through intermediaries and indirect routes. Even so, approval for large-volume imports remains pending.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Nvidia, Alibaba, ByteDance, DeepSeek and Tencent also did not comment.
The Nvidia H200 is not the company's newest processor, but it remains highly sought after: according to the report, it has capabilities that Chinese alternatives have yet to match, making it useful for training AI models — especially combined with Nvidia's software. The search for domestic alternatives is also advancing: Chinese makers such as Iluvatar CoreX claim their Tiangai 300 chip matches the Nvidia H200 in AI tests.
The chip, based on the Hopper architecture, was the first to offer HBM3e memory, with 141 GB and 4.8 TB/s of bandwidth, according to Nvidia's official page.
Scarcity is already pushing prices up
Scarcity is already showing in prices: an eight-card Nvidia H200 server was offered for more than 6 million yuan (about US$900,000) in mainland China at the end of October — roughly three times its price a year earlier, according to a source cited by the agency. Servers using the newer Blackwell chips, which fall under US export controls, were offered for more than 20 million yuan.
A standoff with two sides
The standoff has two sides. United States export controls have sought to restrict China's access to advanced Nvidia chips since 2022. The US barred exports of the H200 before President Donald Trump's administration gave Nvidia permission last year to sell the chips to approved Chinese customers. Now it is Beijing imposing its own constraints, out of concern over dependence on American technology.
In July, The Information reported that Chinese officials told companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek that they could receive permission to buy limited quantities of Nvidia H200 chips for training AI models — with total approvals possibly below 200,000 chips — and that Beijing wanted firms to prioritise Chinese processors for inference, the task of running AI models.
Meanwhile, China's tech giants are seeking alternatives within the rules: last month, Reuters reported that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 graphics cards, a less powerful export-compliant product, with a combined sticker price above US$35 billion.
Image credit: NVIDIA — official H200 image from the product page on NVIDIA's website.
Sources
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on cross-checking public posts and internet sources, including the exclusive Reuters report cited below. Information attributed to sources has not been officially confirmed by the companies and authorities mentioned. We recommend consulting the original sources to verify the details.
Muse
