Exclusive: China gives conditional approval for DeepSeek to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips sources

China has conditionally approved its leading artificial intelligence startup, DeepSeek, to purchase Nvidia’s (NVDA.O) H200 AI chips, although key regulatory conditions are still being finalized, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The approval comes after Reuters reported on Wednesday that Chinese tech giants ByteDance, Alibaba (9988.HK) and Tencent (0700.HK) had also been cleared to buy more than 400,000 H200 chips combined.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei on Thursday that the company had not received confirmation of such approvals and said he believed China was still in the process of finalizing export licenses. Nvidia did not respond to a request for comment regarding DeepSeek’s approval.

According to the sources, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Ministry of Commerce have granted approvals for all four companies, but have attached regulatory conditions that are still being worked out. These conditions are being determined by China’s top economic planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), one of the people said.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Commerce and the NDRC did not respond to requests for comment.

DeepSeek, which shook the global technology sector last year by releasing low-cost AI models that undercut U.S. rivals such as OpenAI, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Nvidia’s H200, the company’s second-most powerful artificial intelligence chip, has become a major point of tension in U.S.-China technology relations. While demand from Chinese firms is strong and U.S. authorities have approved exports, Beijing’s hesitation to allow imports has been a key obstacle to shipments.

Earlier this month, the United States formally cleared the way for Nvidia to sell the H200 to China, where interest in the chips is high. However, Chinese regulators retain the final authority over whether the chips can be imported.

Any purchases by DeepSeek could also attract scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers. Reuters reported on Wednesday that a senior U.S. lawmaker alleged Nvidia had assisted DeepSeek in refining AI models that were later used by the Chinese military, according to a letter sent to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.