The US Commerce Department has cleared dozens of Chinese companies to receive and handle Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips, according to reporting by the New York Times. Some of those companies have ties to firms that Washington has sanctioned on national security grounds.
Reporters also found that several approved entities were registered at addresses that appeared to be empty offices. That detail matters because a licence is only as good as the checks behind it.
How the approvals work
Export controls on advanced chips are meant to keep the most capable hardware out of the hands of military-linked buyers. In practice, the system relies on lists of approved end users, known as validated customers, who can buy without a fresh licence for every shipment. Building that list requires checking ownership, site visits and follow-up audits.
If a company is approved on paper but has no staff or equipment at its stated address, the chip can move again after delivery. Tracking that second hop is much harder than tracking the first.
A policy under strain
The H200 sits in a difficult spot. It is powerful enough to train large models, and Nvidia has argued that blocking sales entirely would push Chinese buyers toward domestic suppliers. Washington has instead tried to allow some sales while restricting the highest-end parts of the lineup.
That middle path depends on enforcement capacity. Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security has struggled for years with a growing workload and limited staff. Each new approval adds to the list that must be monitored.
What happens next
Lawmakers from both parties have asked for details of the approvals and for the vetting steps taken. Nvidia has said it follows US rules and sells only to customers that clear the licensing process. The company has not commented on individual cases.
The larger question is whether export controls can be run as a screening exercise at the border, or whether they need continuous checks inside the buyer's operations. The answer will shape how much of the AI hardware supply chain remains under US influence, and how fast China's own chip industry closes the gap.
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