Beijing reportedly limiting H200 purchases to those with ‘special circumstances’ — sources suggest only university R&D labs can acquire Nvidia GPUs in China

Beijing has reportedly restricted the purchase of Nvidia's H200 data center GPUs in China to only those with "special circumstances," likely limited to university research and development labs. This move comes after President Trump allowed Nvidia to sell these chips to China, but Beijing put a pause on orders to assess the impact on AI development and semiconductor sovereignty goals. Chinese chip makers can produce AI processors but lack the power and efficiency of Nvidia's offerings. There are suggestions that Chinese companies may need to buy domestically manufactured AI processors alongside Nvidia GPUs, with the government having the final say on approvals. The directive's ambiguity leaves Nvidia and tech giants awaiting Beijing's decisions on future purchases.