Nvidia may ramp up production of H200 chips due to rush demand from China
By ForGeeks
After Nvidia managed to get Donald Trump’s administration to authorize the sale of its H200 chips to China, the company is considering increasing production. This is reported by Reuters, citing sources familiar with the situation. The reason — a surge in interest from Chinese companies, which have started to actively place orders.
After the Trump administration succeeded in getting Nvidia authorized to sell its H200 chips to China, the company is considering increasing production.
The H200 — are the most powerful previous-generation Hopper GPUs designed for training large language models. They had previously been banned from being shipped to China: under the Joe Biden administration, restrictions on the sale of advanced AI chips to the country were discussed. Last week, however, the U.S. Commerce Department approved sales of the H200 to China on the condition that Nvidia contribute 25 percent of the proceeds from those shipments.
Demand from Chinese customers has been so strong that Nvidia is seriously considering expanding production capacity, Reuters notes. However, Chinese authorities are still debating whether to allow imports of the H200, which is considered noticeably more powerful than the H20 — a modified version of the GPU previously customized by Nvidia for the Chinese market.
For Nvidia, ramping up H200 production could be an opportunity to meet pent-up demand as China actively seeks to develop its own AI chips. Due to competition and national security concerns in the West, Chinese companies have long been limited in their access to cutting-edge AI training solutions. As a result, they have relied on improving the efficiency of their models rather than scale.
Nevertheless, major players such as Alibaba and ByteDance, which are developing their own AI models, have already contacted Nvidia to discuss large orders for the H200. The chips themselves, however, are still being produced in limited volumes.
At the same time, Nvidia has been in contact with Nvidia to discuss large orders for the H200.
A Nvidia spokesperson emphasized in a written comment that the company is managing its supply chain so that licensed H200 sales to China will not affect Nvidia’s ability to supply customers in the U.S.
