About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips sit in Hong Kong as China holds back import approval

As of 7:58 a.m. ET, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026

About 600,000 of Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips are stored in Hong Kong awaiting shipment to mainland China because Beijing has not approved large-scale imports, Reuters reported Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

The size of the stockpile had not previously been reported, Reuters said. The agency said the backlog reflects Beijing's reluctance to increase reliance on U.S. technology even as Chinese companies need advanced computing power for AI work.

China has allowed some of the chips to enter in recent months, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Several major Chinese internet companies have each obtained about 10,000 H200 chips in the past few months, one of the people said. Small quantities have also moved through intermediaries and indirect routes, three people told Reuters, without saying how many.

Beijing has not approved large-volume imports into the mainland, the people said, according to Reuters.

Nvidia and Chinese agencies did not respond

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Neither did Nvidia, nor Chinese tech companies Alibaba, ByteDance, DeepSeek and Tencent, Reuters reported.

The H200 is not Nvidia's newest AI processor, but Reuters said it has capabilities Chinese alternatives have yet to match, especially when used with Nvidia's software to train AI models.

U.S. export controls since 2022 have sought to limit China's access to advanced Nvidia chips. With authorized supply constrained, Chinese buyers have turned to intermediaries, pushing up prices in the unofficial market, Reuters reported. An eight-card H200 server was offered for more than 6 million yuan (about $900,000) in mainland China by the end of October, about three times its price a year earlier, one person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The United States had barred H200 exports to China before President Donald Trump's administration gave Nvidia permission to sell the chips to approved Chinese customers, Reuters said, after U.S.-China trade talks. Beijing has imposed its own constraints on H200 imports, Reuters reported.

The figures in this story are as reported by Reuters. GROKsiNEWS.com has not independently verified the stockpile size, the limited-import figures or the unofficial market prices.