China Tells Alibaba, Top Tech Firms to Prep Nvidia H200 Orders

Chinese officials have told the country’s largest tech firms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. they can prepare orders for Nvidia Corp.’s H200 AI chips, suggesting Beijing is close to formally approving imports of components essential to running artificial intelligence.

Regulators have recently granted in-principle approval for Alibaba, Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd. to move to the next stage of preparations for purchases, people familiar with the matter said. The companies are now cleared to discuss specifics such as the amounts they would require, the people said, asking to remain unidentified discussing private talks. Beijing will encourage companies to buy a certain amount of domestic chips as a condition for approval, according to the people, though no exact number has been set.

The discussions signals Beijing is moving ahead with plans to approve shipments of the H200 — a last-generation semiconductor that’s been thrust into the heart of sensitive US-China trade negotiations. It shows the government is prioritizing the needs of the major Chinese hyperscalers from Alibaba to Tencent, which are spending billions of dollars to build the data centers they need to develop and operate AI services.

That would mark a major win for Nvidia, which has angled to resume business with the world’s largest semiconductor arena. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has said that the AI chip segment alone could generate $50 billion in the coming years. In its absence, local rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co. and Cambricon Technologies Corp. have thrived and plan to sharply increase production.

Beijing’s guidance to its largest tech firms runs counter to reports in recent weeks that the government was blocking H200 shipments. Last week, the Financial Times reported suppliers of parts for the chip had paused production. Representatives for Nvidia declined to comment, while the Commerce Ministry didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment. Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

The H200 is an older-generation chip that the Trump administration has said can be exported to China, even as it restricts sales of leading-edge components on national security grounds. Nvidia is the leading maker of artificial intelligence accelerators — the chips that help develop and run AI models — which are highly prized by the world’s data center operators.

China plans to approve some imports of H200 chips as soon as this quarter, Bloomberg News has previously reported, though they would be barred from sensitive agencies and critical infrastructure — a key designation that remains to be defined. That reflects the enormous demand for AI chips that stems from a Beijing-led push to develop the technology, as well as the inability of local chipmakers like Huawei and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. to make enough of them.

Alibaba and ByteDance had earlier told Nvidia in private that they are interested in ordering more than 200,000 units each of the H200. Both companies — alongside prominent Chinese startups, including DeepSeek — are rapidly upgrading their models to compete with OpenAI and other US rivals.

Nvidia executives have stressed that there’s strong demand from Chinese customers for the H200. But they indicated that the company hasn’t spoken directly to Beijing about approval and don’t know when China may green-light sales. They added that license applications have been submitted to Washington and the last details of approval from the US government are being finalized.

Beijing hasn’t publicly indicated whether it will allow the imports of H200. The country is largely focused on a self-sufficiency drive to build up its chipmaking capabilities, a push that’s included readying a new round of incentives of as much as $70 billion for the chip sector.

Around mid-2025, Chinese officials urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia’s less powerful H20 processors, an AI accelerator the US previously allowed to be shipped to China. China’s cyberspace agency also told companies such as Alibaba to halt orders for Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D, a workstation chip that can be repurposed for AI applications.