About 600,000 of Nvidia H200 chips are sitting in Hong Kong storage facilities because Beijing has not given the green light for large-scale imports into mainland China, according to The Next Web. The news agency revealed this hardware buildup after speaking with two people familiar with the situation.
Key takeaways
- Roughly 600,000 Nvidia H200 processors are currently stored in Hong Kong.
- Beijing prefers local firms to use domestically produced chips instead.
- An unofficial market server with eight H200 units costs over 6m yuan.
- Nvidia reported H200 sales to China accounted for under 1% of data center revenue.
Why are Nvidia H200 chips stuck in Hong Kong?
Local tech giants still want the hardware to train and run large AI models even though it is not the newest processor made by the company. The Next Web reports that Beijing wants firms like Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and DeepSeek to rely on Chinese-made silicon instead. This preference targets inference tasks where models run after completing their training phase.
Because of these domestic rules, China might approve fewer than 200,000 foreign processors in total. Several major internet companies managed to receive about 10,000 units each over recent months. Meanwhile, Nvidia did not answer requests for comment, and neither did China's industry ministry or its main economic planning agency.
How does the restriction affect the unofficial market and prices?
The supply bottleneck caused prices on the unofficial market to surge sharply. By the end of October, a single server loaded with eight H200 units carried a price tag exceeding 6m yuan, which is roughly triple what it cost a year earlier. Servers carrying newer Blackwell chips, which face US export bans to China, appeared on the same market for more than 20m yuan each.
Rules on both sides have shifted back and forth for months. The US started reviewing export licenses on a case-by-case basis in January after limited sales were permitted in December 2025. Chinese restrictions later blocked Nvidia from selling every unit it was licensed to ship, despite an initial batch approval for ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent.
What it means for hardware supply and financial impacts
Nvidia revealed in a quarterly filing that H200 sales to China generated less than 1% of its total data center revenue. The company also absorbed a $400m charge covering unsold stock and purchase commitments. Even so, demand for other hardware remains strong, with ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent recently ordering over 3 million RTX Pro graphics cards valued at more than $35bn.
Frequently asked questions
About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips are being kept in Hong Kong because Beijing has not approved large-scale imports into mainland China.
Beijing wants domestic technology firms like Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent, and DeepSeek to use Chinese-made chips instead of foreign hardware, especially for inference work.
By the end of October, a server equipped with eight H200 chips sold for more than 6m yuan on the unofficial market, reaching about three times its price from a year prior.
Nvidia took a $400m charge for unsold H200 inventory and purchase commitments, and noted that H200 sales to China made up less than 1% of its data center revenue.
Several large Chinese internet companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, each received about 10,000 H200 units over recent months.
Based on reporting by The Next Web. Read the original article
