The Trump administration will only allow exports of Nvidia and AMD GPUs to China if local buyers can get all the kit they want.
Recent US policy has restricted exports of advanced GPUs to China, on grounds that the Middle Kingdom can use them for military purposes. That ban meant Nvidia could not export its H200 accelerator to China. The company responded by creating the H20, a crippled version of the H200.
The Trump administration later banned exports of the H20, to prevent China improving its AI capabilities. Nvidia later said that decision cost it over $10 billion in sales.
The administration then reversed the ban and promised to allow H200 sales into China subject to certain conditions.
On Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) revealed those conditions in a filing [PDF] that explains it will allow Nvidia and AMD to apply to export their H200 and MI325X models if they meet four criteria:
There’s also a requirement for any shipments to China to “be no more than 50% of the total product shipped to customers for end use in the United States of that product.”
AMD and Nvidia will also have to produce a list of remote users located within, or controlled by a parent company from, Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Macau, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.
The BIS will conduct a case-by-case review of every application to export and says the new rules are necessary “to ensure the national security benefits of U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence.”
Nvidia and AMD launched the H200 and MI325X in 2024, and the devices do not use their most advanced architectures. If Chinese buyers pass the BIS’s test and can acquire the machines, they will therefore acquire less powerful chips than those available to US buyers – potentially preserving the USA’s lead if China doesn’t catch up with homegrown GPUs.
Or perhaps not, as Chinese hyperscalers and AI companies have often found ways to do more with less, as was the case with DeepSeek and Alibaba Cloud, which found a way to lift GPU utilization rates.
Shares in AMD and Nvidia stayed flat on Tuesday, suggesting investors don’t see the new rules as likely to deliver a flood of sales and revenue. ®
Source: The register