China has not yet received any Nvidia H200 chips, US official says
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A smartphone with a displayed NVIDIA logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken March 6, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
By Alexandra Alper
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - None of Nvidia's second-most advanced AI chips, known as the H200, have been sold yet to Chinese customers, a U.S. Commerce Department official said on Tuesday.
"My understanding is that none so far," David Peters, the assistant secretary for export enforcement, said at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing when asked about the prized semiconductors.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
President Donald Trump's administration last month gave a formal green light to China-bound sales of Nvidia's H200 chips with conditions, drawing fire from U.S. lawmakers and former officials of both parties.
The administration, led by White House AI czar David Sacks, has said shipping advanced AI chips to China discourages Chinese competitors - such as heavily sanctioned Huawei - from redoubling efforts to catch up with the most advanced chip designs from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.
But China hawks fear the chips could easily be diverted from commercial uses to help supercharge China's military and threaten U.S. dominance in AI.
For now, shipments of the chips remain stalled over guardrails built into the process.
Peters was also asked by Republican U.S. Representative Bill Huizenga about chip smuggling into China. Huizenga referenced a Reuters report that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek used Nvidia's most advanced chip to train its latest AI model, likely in violation of U.S. export controls.
"Yes, there is chip smuggling, it is going on," said Peters. "We are actively addressing this problem. It is among our top enforcement priorities."
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham and Matthew Lewis)
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