By CIO Insider Team
 

Nvidia has told Chinese clients it aims to start shipping its second-most powerful AI chips to China before the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February, according to reports.

The U.S. chipmaker plans to fulfil initial orders from existing stock, with shipments expected to total 5,000 to 10,000 chip modules - equivalent to about 40,000 to 80,000 H200 AI chips, as per reports.

Nvidia has also told Chinese clients that it plans to add new production capacity for the chips, with orders for that capacity opening in the second quarter of 2026, the third source said.

Significant uncertainty remains, as Beijing has yet to approve any H200 purchases and the timeline could shift depending on government decisions, reports claim.

The whole plan is contingent on government approval. Nothing is certain until we get the official go-ahead.

Nvidia says, "we continuously manage our supply chain. Licensed sales of the H200 to authorized customers in China will have no impact on our ability to supply customers in the United States."

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The planned shipments would mark the first deliveries of H200 chips to China after U.S. President Donald Trump said this month that Washington would allow such sales with a 25 percent fee.

The Trump administration had launched an inter-agency review of license applications for H200 chip sales to China, making good on his pledge to allow the sales.

The move represents a major policy shift from the Biden administration, which banned advanced AI chip sales to China citing national security concerns.

The H200, part of Nvidia's previous-generation Hopper line, remains widely used in AI despite being superseded by the firm's newer Blackwell chips. Nvidia has focused production on Blackwell and its upcoming Rubin line, making H200 supply scarce.

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Trump's decision comes as China pushes to develop its domestic AI chip industry. Local firms have yet to match the H200's performance, raising concerns that allowing imports could slow domestic progress.

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For Chinese technology giants such as Alibaba Group and ByteDance, which have expressed interest in buying H200 chips, the potential shipments would provide access to processors roughly six times more powerful than the H20, a downgraded chip Nvidia designed for China.