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US opens case-by-case H200 licences for China and adds 25% tariff on such chips
Following President Trump's 8 Dec 2025 announcement that NVIDIA could sell H200s to approved Chinese customers with 25% going to the US government, BIS switched review of H200/MI325X-class exports to China and Macau from presumed denial to case-by-case. Exporters must certify sufficient US supply, no diversion of foundry capacity, China volumes capped at 50% of US customer shipments, know-your-customer checks and independent US testing; a 14 Jan Section 232 proclamation put a 25% tariff on such chips, exempting imports for the US build-out.
Why it matters
It reopened China to near-frontier US accelerators under a revenue-and-volume bargain, reversing the trend of tighter controls since 2022.
Line of Thought
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Directly linked
Connections our researchers recorded
- DevelopmentUS charges Supermicro co-founder over alleged $2.5bn Nvidia-server diversion to China19 Mar 2026 · Enforcement or ruling · US, CNContrasts with: Legal H200 sales reopened while black-market routes for newer chips were prosecuted
- DevelopmentNVIDIA restarts H200 production after Chinese orders and first US licence17 Mar 2026 · Deal · CN, USLed to: First sales under the January licensing policy
- DevelopmentUS scraps AI Diffusion Rule and warns against using Huawei Ascend chips13 May 2025 · Rule change · US, CNFollows from: Another deal-based change to the chip export regime
- DevelopmentChina's market regulator finds preliminary NVIDIA antitrust breach over Mellanox deal15 Sep 2025 · Enforcement or ruling · CN, USContrasts with: Washington eased H200 access while Beijing kept regulatory pressure on NVIDIA
What led here
Earlier developments on the same thread
- DevelopmentChina adds extraterritorial rare-earth export controls, then pauses them to Nov 20269 Oct 2025 · Rule change · CN, US
- DevelopmentOpenAI signs 6GW AMD GPU deal and gets warrant for up to 160m AMD shares6 Oct 2025 · Deal · US
- DevelopmentHuawei sets yearly Ascend AI-chip roadmap and 8,192-chip Atlas 950 SuperPoD18 Sep 2025 · Launch · CN
- DevelopmentChina's internet regulator summons NVIDIA over alleged security risks in H20 chips31 Jul 2025 · Enforcement or ruling · CN, US
What happened next
Later developments on the same thread
- DevelopmentPresidential memo orders rapid rewrite of Pentagon autonomous-weapons rules5 Jun 2026 · Policy · US
- DevelopmentUS export-control order forces global shutdown of Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 512 Jun 2026 · Enforcement or ruling · US
- DevelopmentUS moves UAE into top export tier, opening licence-free AI chips to approved users10 Jul 2026 · Rule change · US, AE
- DevelopmentOpenAI ties large reasoning-distillation campaign to people linked to Moonshot AI30 Sep 2026 · Incident · US, CN
Rules in play
Laws and guidance this touches
- RuleBIS H200 case-by-case ruleUS · In force · 15 Jan 2026
Threads by topic: Export controls Chips National security