US President Donald Trump announced that Nvidia would be allowed to sell high-performance chips to authorized customers in China, but with a 25% US export tariff. This step includes the H200 chip, which is the second most powerful chip offered by the company.
Despite the continued ban on selling Nvidia’s most powerful chipset, the Blackwell B200, to Chinese companies, the H200 chip still represents a big leap compared to the H20 chip, which the company developed specifically to comply with previous restrictions. The H20 has so far been the only SIM card allowed to be sold in China to authorized buyers.
Reports indicate that the H200 is six times faster than the H20 in some tasks, while the B200 outperforms the H200 by nearly ten times. Although the B200 is officially banned from being sold in China, various reports confirm that chips worth more than $1 billion have already arrived in China via the black market.
Although Chinese companies are now legally able to obtain more advanced chips, their take-up remains questionable, especially after the Chinese government repeatedly directed its companies to avoid relying on American technology.
At the same time, Huawei continues its race to catch up with Nvidia and AMD within three years, despite the great controversy over the extent to which this can be achieved in this time frame.
