Nvidia's on-again off-again H200 sales in China are now on again
Beijing appears to have eased its policy of pushing local GPUs
GTC Nvidia has called on its supply chain partners to begin manufacturing its ageing H200 GPUs to meet demand for chips in China, CEO Jensen Huang said Tuesday.
"We've been licensed for many customers in China for H200. We have received purchase orders from many customers and we are in the process of restarting our manufacturing," Huang told press at Nvidia’s GTC event.
Huang's comments come just weeks after CFO Colette Kress warned investors that its Q1 2027 revenue forecast didn't account for a single cent of revenue from Chinese datacenter customers.
That prediction came after the Trump administration last December lifted an export ban on high-end AI accelerators that meant Nvidia could not sell the H200 to Chinese customers. China’s government then reportedly frowned on local buyers who tried to import the H200, which despite being a modest machine compared to Nvidia’s recent models is still more capable than GPUs Chinese companies produce.
The situation is "different from what it was two weeks ago or three weeks ago, but that's our condition today," said Huang, who praised US President Donald Trump's trade policy with regard to sales of Nvidia hardware in China and abroad.
"President Trump's intention is that the United States should have a leadership position and access to Nvidia's best technology, however, he would like us to compete worldwide and not concede those markets unnecessarily," Huang said.
Throughout this process Huang has remained confident that Chinese authorities would allow sales of the chips. The CEO’s remarks suggest Beijing has eased its pressure on local buyers and that manufacturing Hopper silicon for China once again makes sense for Nvidia. ®