About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval

About 600,000 of Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips are stored in Hong Kong awaiting shipment to mainland China, as Beijing withholds approval for large-scale imports despite strong demand from Chinese technology firms, Reuters reported exclusively on November 5. (Photo: Nvidia H200 product image.)

A 600,000-chip stockpile in Hong Kong

Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters the size of the stockpile had not previously been reported. China has allowed some of the chips to enter the country in recent months — several major Chinese internet companies have each obtained about 10,000 H200 chips in the past few months, one of the people said. Three people said small quantities had also been shipped via intermediaries and indirect routes, without specifying how many.

Beijing's concern: avoiding reliance on US technology

The stockpile reflects Beijing's reluctance to increase reliance on US technology, the report said. Technology publication The Information reported in July that Chinese officials had told companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek that they could receive permission to buy limited quantities of H200 chips for training AI models, with total approvals possibly amounting to fewer than 200,000 chips, and that Beijing wanted firms to prioritise Chinese processors for inference. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Nvidia or Chinese tech companies Alibaba, ByteDance, DeepSeek and Tencent.

Prices surge inside China

Restricted supply has pushed up prices in mainland China. 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 said. Servers using Nvidia's newer Blackwell chips were offered for more than 20 million yuan apiece. The H200 is not Nvidia's newest AI processor, but it has capabilities that Chinese alternatives have yet to match, making it useful for training AI models, particularly when combined with Nvidia's software.

Export controls, in both directions

US export controls since 2022 have sought to restrict China's access to advanced Nvidia chips and the equipment needed to make them. The United States barred exports of the H200 to China before President Donald Trump's administration gave Nvidia permission last year to sell the chips to approved Chinese customers. Beijing has now imposed its own constraints on H200 imports, leaving a large stockpile stuck in Hong Kong.

(Source: Reuters exclusive, November 5, 2026.)