China reportedly approves DeepSeek’s purchase of Nvidia H200 chips

China has reportedly conditionally approved DeepSeek, a leading AI startup, to purchase Nvidia’s H200 chips, with final regulatory conditions still being determined, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The approval allows DeepSeek to acquire the chips under certain restrictions, which are being finalized by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Other Chinese tech giants, including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent, have also received permission to buy over 400,000 H200 chips, though details of the conditions remain unclear.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company has not received official confirmation of the approval and believes China is still finalizing licensing.

🔗 Source: Reuters

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

### Key conditions for H200 sales to China remain undefined

The exact performance limits tied to the approved chips still need to be spelled out. U.S. rules set upper limits for processing performance and memory bandwidth, while performance in large AI clusters can also be constrained by caps on high-speed interconnects, the links that connect chips so they can work together inside a data center 2.
The number of chips that can actually be shipped also remains uncertain. Exports to China are capped at less than 50% of the volume sold in the United States 2. Any reported approval for more than 400,000 chips for Chinese tech giants is therefore tied to U.S. sales levels and to whether export licenses are granted.
China’s own requirements are still being worked out. Approvals for DeepSeek, ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent were issued with regulatory conditions that were still being finalised, while the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) which is China’s state economic planning agency is deciding those conditions 1. Separate reporting has also suggested that domestic chip purchase mandates could be weighed, or that customs authorities have been told the graphics processing units (GPUs) which are chips widely used to train and run AI models are not permitted to enter the country 3.

### Chip approvals could boost demand for China’s data center infrastructure vendors

China’s conditional approval for DeepSeek to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips, plus reported approvals for other Chinese tech companies, could lift orders for advanced cooling and power equipment across the data center supply chain 1.
These AI accelerators push server rack power densities beyond what standard air cooling can handle 4.
That pressure can speed up a move to liquid cooling. One market report estimated the global data center liquid cooling market would grow at a 51.93% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) from 2024 to 2030, with the U.S. and China “at the forefront” of adoption 5.
Hardware makers can pitch to operators such as ChinData, whose X-Power architecture is built for 12 kW to 150 kW per rack 6.