The U.S. Commerce Department cleared Chinese companies to handle Nvidia’s H200 chips even though some of them appear to exist mainly on paper, according to a New York Times investigation published on Saturday. Reporters who visited the listed offices of two approved firms found them empty, and corporate records tied several licensees to blacklisted companies and to suppliers of the Chinese military.

The H200 is one of Nvidia’s most powerful chips for training and running large AI models, and it has become a focal point of the U.S.-China technology rivalry. Washington has steadily tightened the rules on sending advanced AI chips to China since 2022, arguing they could support the country’s military modernization. The Times investigation now raises questions about whether the screening process that was supposed to police those sales is working at all.

What the Investigation Found

According to the Times, the Commerce Department has cleared roughly two dozen companies in China to buy or handle H200 chips, including firms licensed to assemble the chips into AI servers rather than use them as end customers. The reporters focused on the companies whose paperwork looked thinnest.

The clearest case is New Matrix, a company formed 17 months ago that was cleared to assemble H200 processors into the computer systems used to train and run AI models. Its listed address sits in a recently built industrial park on the northwest edge of Beijing. The Times describes the office as “a hollow gray structure with wires hanging from the ceiling where light fixtures should be.” The firm does not appear on its listed building’s company directory, and both a receptionist and a manager at the industrial park’s property management agency said they had no record of it.

Chinese corporate records show that New Matrix’s owners have ties to Wise Road Capital, a prominent Chinese private equity fund that the United States placed on a trade blacklist in 2024. Two analysts who reviewed the records told the Times they believe New Matrix may be a front for companies associated with that fund. New Matrix has not commented publicly.

Maginfra, a server maker already known to have received permission to buy H200 chips, drew similar findings. Its listed office also appeared deserted when reporters visited. The Times found that Maginfra shares staff and patents with Inspur, the Chinese server giant the United States put on its Entity List for working with the Chinese military, and analysts told the paper they believed Maginfra was an offshoot of Inspur.

Two other licensees, Zhejiang Yindun Cloud Technology and Shanghai Jiatang, are tied through their owners to companies that serve the Chinese military, according to the Times. Maginfra, Yindun Cloud and Shanghai Jiatang did not respond to the paper’s requests for comment.

Neither the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which runs U.S. export controls, nor Nvidia has commented publicly on the findings.

How the H200 Pipeline Works

Timeline of Nvidia H200 export approvals from December 2025 to November 2026
Chart: GPTOnline

The approvals sit at the end of a policy reversal that began late last year. The Trump administration agreed in December 2025 to let Nvidia sell the H200 to Chinese buyers, after chief executive Jensen Huang lobbied hard against limits on chip sales to China. Under the terms announced on December 8, 2025, H200 exports could proceed with 25 percent of the revenue going to the United States. Beginning in mid-January 2026, the Commerce Department moved to case-by-case reviews of Nvidia’s chip exports, with each license in theory involving scrutiny of who is buying and what they plan to do with the chips.

Reuters reported in May that the United States had cleared around 10 Chinese firms, among them Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com, to buy the chips, though no deliveries had been made at that time. In July, Reuters reported that ZTE Kangxun Telecom and Maginfra had been permitted to buy H200s, citing documents and two people familiar with the matter.

Even with the licenses in place, the pipeline has stayed clogged on both ends. In January 2026, Beijing conditionally approved around 400,000 H200 chips for companies including Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent, but large-volume import requests have continued to run into obstacles on the Chinese side. As of early November 2026, an estimated 600,000 H200 chips were reported to be stockpiled in Hong Kong, waiting on Chinese import approvals that have not materialized at scale, as GPTOnline reported earlier this week. H200 sales in China accounted for less than 1 percent of Nvidia’s data-center revenue in the July 2026 quarter.

Bar chart: 400,000 H200 chips conditionally approved by Beijing versus about 600,000 stockpiled in Hong Kong
Chart: GPTOnline, based on reported figures

Why It Matters

Export licenses are meant to keep America’s best AI chips away from China’s military, and the Commerce Department’s checks are the main safeguard once sales are allowed. If firms with empty offices and links to blacklisted companies can pass those checks, the H200 policy rests on paperwork that may say little about where the chips end up.

The report also lands as Nvidia’s China ties face other questions. Last month, the Times reported that U.S. intelligence believes a suspected Chinese spy got close to Huang through Megaspeed, a cloud company the Commerce Department has been examining over whether Nvidia chips were diverted, as GPTOnline reported. The Republican chairs of three House committees have asked Huang to brief them on November 18.

For now, the direct revenue stakes for Nvidia are small, and Beijing has pushed Chinese firms toward homegrown chips, leaving it unclear how many approved H200 sales will go ahead. The open question is whether U.S. officials respond to the Times report by reviewing New Matrix’s approval or tightening the screening process. Until then, the investigation stands as the sharpest test yet of a licensing system that was supposed to balance chip sales with national security.

Sources