The Chinese government has reportedly approved DeepSeek's purchase of NVIDIA's advanced H200 AI chips, according to Reuters. This approval comes amid ongoing US restrictions and efforts by Chinese firms to acquire high-performance hardware. ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent have also received permission to buy a total of 400,000 such GPUs.
Chinese authorities have granted DeepSeek permission to acquire NVIDIA's H200 AI chips, as reported by Reuters. This development follows the US government's decision in December 2025 to allow NVIDIA to sell its H200 processors—its second-most advanced model—to vetted Chinese companies, alongside the less powerful H20 model, in exchange for a 25 percent tariff on those sales.
ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent have similarly obtained approvals to purchase a combined 400,000 H200 GPUs. However, Beijing is still finalizing the conditions these companies must meet, which could delay shipments. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang stated that his company has not yet received orders from these firms and believes China is continuing to process the licenses.
Previously, China had discouraged local companies from buying NVIDIA's H20 chips, but it recently agreed to import hundreds of thousands of H200 units following Huang's visit to the country. While Chinese firms are increasingly turning to domestic alternatives like Huawei and Baidu for AI chips, NVIDIA's technology remains superior. The H200 is only outpaced by the B200 and is approximately six times more powerful than the H20.
China's National Development and Reform Commission is overseeing the conditions for these purchases. In the United States, the deal raises potential scrutiny, with a lawmaker recently accusing NVIDIA of aiding DeepSeek in developing AI models later used by the Chinese military.
