NVIDIA has received US approval to ship its H200 AI GPUs to China based customers, but the company is not counting on any revenue from those sales for now. CFO Colette Kress said during NVIDIA’s latest earnings call that the company has not generated revenue from the approved H200 shipments and remains unsure whether China will allow imports of the chips.
The situation shows how difficult NVIDIA’s China business has become. US export rules have limited the company’s ability to sell advanced AI chips in the country, while China has also pushed back against some import orders for products designed around those restrictions.
Jensen Huang says local Chinese AI chip companies are gaining ground as NVIDIA steps back
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said in a CNBC interview that local Chinese companies are doing well because NVIDIA has effectively left much of that market. He said Huawei is likely to have a strong year as China’s domestic AI chip ecosystem grows in response to the restrictions.
The approved H200 chips are based on NVIDIA’s older Hopper generation. They sit behind newer platforms such as Blackwell and Vera Rubin, which remain more advanced. Huang has also said that the US should keep the latest and strongest AI chips first, while still saying NVIDIA would be happy to serve the Chinese market if allowed.
| Area | Current situation |
|---|---|
| Approved chip | NVIDIA H200 |
| China revenue outlook | Not included in NVIDIA’s data center compute forecast |
| Main uncertainty | Whether China will allow imports |
| Rival gaining attention | Huawei |
| H200 generation | Hopper |
| Newer NVIDIA platforms | Blackwell and Vera Rubin |
| Market effect | Chinese AI chip makers are getting more room to grow |
Huawei and other Chinese chip makers have benefited from the gap left by NVIDIA, but they still face major limits. Reports cited in the reference article suggest Chinese companies are working with older manufacturing technologies because of US restrictions on advanced chipmaking equipment. The same report says top US AI chips remain far ahead of Huawei’s products in raw performance.
For NVIDIA, the China issue remains a major business risk. The company has approval for H200 shipments, but approval alone does not guarantee sales. Until imports are allowed and customers can actually buy the chips, NVIDIA is treating China data center revenue as zero in its outlook.
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