# Nvidia H200 chips stranded in Hong Kong as Beijing withholds import approval

> About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips sit in Hong Kong awaiting Beijing's import approval.

*About 600,000 chips wait in Hong Kong while mainland China has not approved large-scale imports.*

By Bez · FeaturedDaily
Canonical: https://featureddaily.com/news/nvidia-h200-chips-stranded-in-hong-kong-as-beijing-withholds-import-approval

**What happened:** About 600,000 Nvidia AI chips are stored in Hong Kong, waiting to ship to mainland China. Reuters reported the figure, as relayed by [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/nvidia-chips-stockpile-hong-kong-120548918.html).

**The numbers:** Several major Chinese internet companies have each received about 10,000 H200 chips in recent months. Smaller quantities have entered through intermediaries, with amounts not specified. An eight-card H200 server was offered for more than 6 million yuan (about $900,000) in mainland China by the end of October, roughly triple its price a year earlier.

**The context:** Reports say ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent ordered more than 3 million Nvidia RTX Pro 5500 graphics cards, with a combined sticker price above $35 billion. [Benzinga](https://www.benzinga.com/markets/tech/26/11/62919241/chinas-nvidia-h200-bottleneck-deepens-600000-chips-reportedly-await-approval-in-hong-kong-as-servers-fetch-nearly-1-million-each) reported the same chip stockpile.

**In their words:** Reuters reported: "Beijing has not approved large-scale imports of the H200 chips despite demand from technology companies."

**The catch:** One unconfirmed report says Beijing wants firms including Alibaba, ByteDance, Tencent and DeepSeek to prioritise Chinese processors for inference, with total foreign-chip approvals possibly under 200,000 units. No other source confirms this.

**What's next:** No timeline or criteria for a Beijing decision have been published. US regulatory approval does not automatically guarantee that Nvidia chips reach Chinese customers.

## Key takeaways

- About 600,000 Nvidia H200 chips are stored in Hong Kong
- Beijing has not approved large-scale H200 imports
- No timeline published for a Beijing decision