About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips are stuck in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval
About 600,000 Nvidia (NVDA) H200 artificial intelligence chips are sitting in Hong Kong because Beijing has not cleared large-scale imports into mainland China, Reuters reports.
The size of the stockpile had not been reported before. China has let some of the chips in over recent months, and some of its biggest internet groups got about 10,000 H200s each.
The hold shows Beijing does not want to lean more on US technology, even as its tech firms need more computing power for AI.
Nvidia sells newer chips than the H200, but Chinese alternatives cannot yet match it. Nvidia, Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (HKG:0700), ByteDance and DeepSeek did not comment, and neither did China's industry ministry.
Nvidia has already taken China out of its forecast. Its outlook for the quarter that ended in October calls for $108B in revenue and assumes no data center compute revenue from China.
H200 sales to Chinese customers were less than 1% of data center revenue in the quarter to July, finance chief Colette Kress said on the earnings call.
With official supply short, Chinese buyers have turned to middlemen. A server with eight H200 chips was offered in mainland China for more than $900,000 at the end of October, roughly triple what it cost a year earlier, according to Reuters.
The US had barred H200 sales to China until the Trump administration allowed them to approved Chinese customers last year. Beijing has set its own limits. The Information reported in July that its approvals could total fewer than 200,000 chips.
Nvidia shares fell 9.3% to $181.60 on Thursday, November 5, and rose 1.2% after hours. CNBC tied the day's chip selloff to the midterm election results and a weak forecast from Qualcomm (QCOM).
Beijing has not said when it will approve larger imports.
Sources & Further Reading
- "Exclusive: Nvidia chips pile up in Hong Kong as China withholds import approval." Reuters. November 5, 2026.
- "NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Second Quarter Fiscal 2027." NVIDIA. August 26, 2026.
- "NVIDIA (NVDA) Q2 2027 Earnings Call Transcript." Stock Analysis. August 26, 2026.
- "AI meltdown: Nvidia and Qualcomm drop more than 9%, pushing Nasdaq to worst day since April 2025." CNBC. November 5, 2026.
This article was drafted with the help of AI. Kris Gunnars fact-checked, edited and published the article and is responsible for its accuracy and quality. How we use AI
