US Commerce Officials Confirm H200 Chips Reached China as Three More Firms Get Green Light

How did US officials confirm H200 shipments to China?

A senior US Commerce Department official testified before Congress on July 15 that NVIDIA's H200 AI chip has been shipped to China and Hong Kong in a "very small quantity," according to a Liberty Times Net report citing the hearing. The same outlet, in a separate dispatch, attributed the confirmation to Commerce Department Under Secretary for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler, who said H200 units "have already successfully reached China and Hong Kong" in "very small quantities."

CNA's coverage of the same hearing corroborated this account, reporting that Kessler "told the US Congress today that NVIDIA H200 chips have already been shipped to China or Hong Kong, but in scarce quantities." All three sources — Liberty Times Net and CNA — describe the same July 15 congressional testimony, with the qualifier "very small" or "scarce" used consistently rather than any specific unit count.

What is the scale of H200 shipments to China?

None of the three reports on the hearing (Liberty Times Net, CNA) provide a numeric shipment figure. The language used — "very small quantity" (極少量), "very small numbers" (極少數量), and "scarce" (數量稀少) — is qualitative rather than quantitative. Kessler did not disclose a unit count during the testimony, and no outlet in the evidence pack reports one, so the scale of shipments cannot be quantified beyond these official descriptors.

Which additional Chinese companies were just approved?

According to Liberty Times Net, the US has approved three additional Chinese entities to purchase advanced AI chips: ZTE Kangxun (中興康訊), a subsidiary of Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE, and Chinese server maker Maginfra (至索) have received US permission to buy NVIDIA H200 chips, while Zhuhai Hengqin Yunxiang Zhisheng (珠海橫琴雲享智勝), a Kingsoft cloud-computing subsidiary, was cleared to buy AMD chips "comparable to H200."

CNA, citing Reuters and two unnamed sources, confirmed the same three approvals, naming ZTE Kangxun and Maginfra as recipients of H200 clearance and Zhuhai Hengqin Yunxiang Zhisheng as approved for "some AMD chips comparable to H200." TechNews separately named the same three firms — ZTE Kangxun Telecom, Maginfra, and a Kingsoft Cloud subsidiary it rendered as Zhuhai Hengqin Yunxiang Zhisheng Network Technology — as the latest recipients of Commerce Department approval.

How many Chinese firms have now been approved to buy H200 chips?

Liberty Times Net reported that prior to this latest approval, 10 Chinese companies — including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com — had already been cleared to purchase NVIDIA H200 chips. CNA's report cited a May Reuters account giving the same figure: "approximately 10" Chinese firms approved, naming the identical four companies.

The evidence pack does not provide a combined running total, so the two batches are reported here as distinct figures rather than a summed count.

What control measures accompany the H200 sales to China?

According to Liberty Times Net, Under Secretary Kessler told a congressional hearing that the Commerce Department had submitted a confidential list of H200 shipment applications and their status to Congress, without providing further detail — described in the report as a "confidential list" covering applications and status without elaboration.

Separately, Liberty Times Net reported that President Trump approved the sale of H200 chips to China last December, conditional on a "25% profit-sharing" payment, with the corresponding export licenses formally issued earlier this year. The two control mechanisms — a congressional confidentiality arrangement and a profit-sharing condition tied to the original approval — represent the two governance measures documented in the evidence.

How did markets react to the new approvals?

TechNews reported that NVIDIA's stock rose more than 4% in US trading, which it attributed to the news that the Commerce Department had again eased restrictions by approving the three Chinese firms to buy NVIDIA and AMD advanced AI chips.

This market reaction stands against an earlier comment from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, who told CNBC in May, as reported by Liberty Times Net, that he had already advised investors "not to have any expectations" for sales to the Chinese market.

What this means

The congressional testimony (Liberty Times Net, CNA) confirms actual — if officially described as "very small" or "scarce" — H200 shipments have begun reaching China and Hong Kong, following the December 2025 approval that Trump conditioned on a 25% profit share (Liberty Times Net). At the same time, the approved buyer list has expanded from roughly 10 firms reported in May (Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com, per Liberty Times Net and CNA) to include three more named entities in July (ZTE Kangxun, Maginfra, Zhuhai Hengqin Yunxiang Zhisheng, per Liberty Times Net, CNA and TechNews). Yet NVIDIA's stock rose more than 4% on the July approval news (TechNews), a market response that contrasts with CEO Jensen Huang's May remark that investors should not expect meaningful China sales (Liberty Times Net) — underscoring a gap between the modest, officially acknowledged shipment volumes and the more optimistic investor reaction to expanding approval lists.