By Karen Freifeld
NEW YORK, March 17 (Reuters) - Chinese authorities have granted approval for multiple Chinese companies to purchase H200 AI chips from Nvidia, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Earlier on Tuesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at a press conference in San Jose, California that the semiconductor company had been licensed for "many customers in China" for the H200, and had received purchase orders from "many" companies.
Nvidia had been waiting for licenses from both the
U.S. and China for months. The chipmaker has received some U.S. approvals, and the source said it had now also received licenses for many customers in China from Beijing.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said they were "not aware of the specifics," and directed questions to "the competent authorities."
Huang added that Nvidia was in the process of restarting manufacturing of the H200. The company halted production amid regulatory hurdles in the U.S. and China, according to an FT report last month.
CNBC also reported on Tuesday that Huang told them the company now has clearance from both the U.S. and China.
A Chinese company source said that they did not know if the Chinese government had given final approval, but that Nvidia had told them that they could now place purchase orders.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission late last month, Nvidia said that the U.S. had granted a license in February that would allow "small amounts of H200 products to specific China-based customers."
In January, Reuters reported that China granted preliminary approval to three of its largest tech companies - ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba - along with AI startup Deepseek to import the chips, although the regulatory conditions for China's approvals were still being finalized.
The Chinese companies did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Chris Sanders and Kevin Buckland)
