Nvidia chip sales to China are fraught with doubts; a New York Times on-site investigation found that Chinese companies approved by the U.S. to handle H200 chips appear to be shell entities.

A New York Times on-site investigation found that several Chinese companies approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce to handle H200 chips have registered addresses that appear to be shell entities, and some of the companies are linked to firms on the U.S. trade blacklist or to Chinese military contractors, raising questions about whether U.S. national security review of chip sales to China is adequate. This year the Commerce Department has approved about 24 Chinese companies to buy H200 chips or assemble them into AI servers, including Baidu, BYD and Tesla Shanghai. New Matrix, established only 17 months ago, has a registered address that is an empty premises with no property records; its shareholders are linked to Zhipu Capital, which is on the U.S. blacklist, and analysts believe it may be a front company; Maginfra is also believed by analysts to possibly originate from Inspur Group, which was placed on the U.S. Entity List for cooperating with the Chinese military. The Times also cited a high-level Trump administration memorandum saying that Singapore-based Megaspeed's Chinese national executive Huang Le was identified by U.S. intelligence officials as a Chinese intelligence officer, whose tasks included gathering intelligence on Jensen Huang and possibly attempting to influence Nvidia's stance on chip export policy; the Financial Times reported that Jensen Huang had associated with Huang Le.