The United States conditionally allows Nvidia chips: A calculated geopolitical technology game.
14/01/2026
Washington's decisions often reveal their hand at the last minute. On [Month Day], the Trump administration officially gave the green light for NVIDIA to export its second most powerful chips to China, subject to a series of unprecedented strict conditions. This approval is less a permit and more an agreement filled with probing and calculation. On one side hangs the fate of over tens of thousands of chips, with a total value of tens of billions of dollars, while on the other side lies fierce opposition from the "China hawks" within Washington and deep concerns over technology leakage. This game of exporting cutting-edge artificial intelligence computing power was instantly thrust from behind the scenes to the forefront, reflecting the distortion and reshaping of the global technology supply chain under political rifts.
A meticulously planned "conditional release"
The approval of the Trump administration was by no means an unconditional open door. The new regulations constructed a complex filter, attempting to strike a delicate balance between commercial interests and national security.
Technical Review and Quantity Cap: The Illusion and Reality of Dual Safeguards
According to the new regulations, each batch of H200 chips planned for shipment to China must first undergo technical capability testing at a third-party laboratory. Only after confirming that their AI performance complies with the regulations can an export license be obtained. This is equivalent to adding an external "security check" after the chips leave the factory. The more critical restriction lies in quantity: the total number of H200 chips obtained by Chinese customers must not exceed 50% of the total quantity sold by NVIDIA to U.S. customers during the same period. This is a dynamic quota system, intended to permanently anchor China's acquisition volume below half of the United States' own consumption, theoretically ensuring the United States' relative advantage in advanced computing power.
However, analysis suggests that this seemingly stringent quota may have limited effectiveness in practice. Jay Goldberg, a stock analyst at Seaport Research, pointed out incisively that this appears more like a gesture of compromise, with significant challenges in implementation. "As we have seen, (Chinese) companies always find ways to obtain these chips, and the U.S. government has been highly 'transactional' on the issue of chip exports to China," he stated bluntly. He further drew an analogy, "In other words, this looks like a Band-Aid, attempting to temporarily cover up the deep divisions among U.S. government policymakers on export policies."
Safety Commitments and Domestic Stockpiles: A Trust Game Difficult to Verify
The new regulations also require NVIDIA to demonstrate that it maintains "sufficient" inventory within the United States to prioritize domestic demand. At the same time, Chinese clients must prove they have "adequate security procedures" in place and commit not to use the chips for military purposes. These conditions, which had never been explicitly established before, are now being introduced as key leverage by the team led by David Sacks, the White House's director of artificial intelligence affairs.
The logic of the Trump administration carries a distinct transactional hue. They argue that selling advanced chips to China could, in fact, dampen the motivation of heavily sanctioned Chinese competitors like Huawei to double down on efforts to catch up with NVIDIA and the most advanced chip designs. When announcing last month that sales would be permitted, Trump claimed it would be done "under conditions that allow the continued maintenance of strong national security." However, doubts have never dissipated regarding whether the administration would truly enforce these restrictions in practice, or even whether Beijing would allow these chips to be sold domestically.
China's Cautious Response: A Proactive "Cooling Down"
Just as the ink on Washington's approval documents was still wet, news from Beijing added a new dimension to this game. According to The Information, the Chinese government has informed some tech companies this week that it will only approve their purchase of Nvidia H200 chips under "special circumstances," such as for university research. Just as the ink on Washington's approval documents was still wet, news from Beijing added a new dimension to this game. According to The Information, the Chinese government has informed some tech companies this week that it will only approve their purchase of Nvidia H200 chips under "special circumstances," such as for university research.
This directive, described as "deliberately vague," requires companies to make purchases only when "necessary," without specifying the exact meaning of "necessary." The previous week, reports had already indicated that China had asked certain companies to suspend orders, aiming to prioritize the development of domestic enterprises in the competition. The Chinese government plans to hold meetings with more companies to communicate this procurement guidance, though it remains unclear whether more specific rules will be issued.
Beijing's cautious stance sends multiple signals. Firstly, it reflects an inevitable choice under China's strategy of promoting self-reliance and self-strengthening in science and technology. In this critical sector, over-reliance on a single foreign supplier (even a leading performer like NVIDIA) is viewed as a strategic risk. Secondly, it also serves as an indirect response and countermeasure to U.S. restrictions, indicating that the Chinese market is not unconditionally open. NVIDIA finds itself caught in a double squeeze between Washington and Beijing: the U.S. is weighing stricter export controls on its most advanced technologies, while China is intensifying efforts to strengthen domestic capabilities and urging local companies to reduce dependence on foreign technology.
Supply-Demand Imbalance: The Thirst for Computing Power and Strategic Anxiety
The underlying driving force of this game is the intense conflict between massive market demand and geopolitical constraints.
The Computing Power Competition Behind Tens of Thousands of Orders
A Reuters report last month revealed a staggering figure: Chinese tech companies have placed orders for over 10,000 chips. With each chip priced at approximately $10,000, the potential transaction value exceeds $100 million. In contrast, Nvidia's inventory at the time was only 1,000 chips. At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nvidia's Jensen Huang admitted that the company is ramping up chip production to meet strong demand from China and other regions worldwide. This demand has even driven up the rental prices of existing chips in cloud data centers.
Such a massive order volume highlights China's urgent demand for top-tier computing power in the fields of AI large model training and inference. Saif Khan, former Director for Technology and National Security at the White House National Security Council under the Biden administration, warned that the new regulations will substantially enhance China's AI capabilities. "These rules would allow the export of about 2 million advanced AI chips like the H200 to China, a quantity equivalent to the total computing power currently possessed by a typical cutting-edge U.S. AI company." His concern hits the core: computing power is power; in the AI era, the scale of chips directly translates into national and corporate competitiveness.
Implementation Dilemmas and the Prelude to a "Cat-and-Mouse Game"
The new regulations' "Know Your Customer" requirements aim to restrict Chinese cloud service providers from supporting malicious purposes. However, Han points out that the government will face significant challenges in implementation. How can the final destination of chips be monitored? How can it be ensured that they are not used for military or large-scale surveillance projects? The answers to these questions remain unclear. Historical experience shows that, driven by high profits and high demand, underground channels and technical workarounds to circumvent regulations will always emerge.
Within the U.S. government, there is also significant internal division. China hawks, crossing party lines, unanimously criticize this move as providing a "super boost" to Beijing's military capabilities and eroding America's advantage in the field of artificial intelligence. This internal tension renders the policy inherently fragile and uncertain, leaving it vulnerable to tightening once again with shifts in the political winds.
The Restructuring and Future Direction of Global Industrial Chains
The export controversy surrounding NVIDIA chips is by no means an isolated incident. It is a microcosm of the profound transformation occurring in the global artificial intelligence industry chain under the impact of the wave of "techno-nationalism."
The United States attempts to maintain its lead in key areas through a "small yard, high fence" strategy. The conditional approval of H200 can be seen as a flexible adjustment within this "small yard" strategy—not a complete blockade, but rather setting up a valve to attempt to control the speed and scale of technology diffusion, while allowing American companies (NVIDIA) to profit from the vast Chinese market, thereby sustaining their R&D investment and leading position. This is a precise calculation: aiming to both make money and build a moat.
China is accelerating the advancement of "self-reliant and controllable" alternatives. Beijing's restrictions on purchasing H200 are consistent with policies that vigorously support local AI chip companies such as Huawei Ascend and Cambricon. The partial reservation of market space provides domestic chips with a valuable growth window and time. China's goal is clear: to reduce vulnerability dependence on external supply chains and build an AI computing power foundation primarily based on internal circulation.
Global technology companies caught in the middle, such as NVIDIA, must learn to navigate an increasingly complex compliance maze. They may be forced to develop "special edition" chips that are slightly less powerful than top-tier models but specifically tailored to meet export control regulations in different regions, leading to fragmentation in global product lines. This increases both the cost and uncertainty of supply chains.
The game surrounding the H200 is far from over. It has ushered in a new phase: the trade of cutting-edge technology will no longer be merely a commercial activity, but a highly politicized process intertwined with continuous scrutiny, dynamic quotas, security checks, and ambiguous political conditions. The United States' "conditional release" and China's "restrictive procurement" together outline the new normal of future global high-tech competition—coexistence of cooperation and containment, and a dance between dependence and decoupling.
Ultimately, the flow of computing power will not come to a complete halt, but its path will become more winding and costly. The true winners, perhaps, will be those countries and enterprises that can most swiftly adapt to this new normal and strike the optimal balance between independent innovation and open cooperation. The journey of the chip has only just begun.