China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has asked companies including ByteDance and Alibaba to report their plans to buy Nvidia’s RTX PRO 5500 chip, according to two people familiar with the matter, signaling Beijing could allow some domestic purchases.

The ministry told some companies the government intends to approve the purchases, the people said. Some industry executives expect the chip to avoid US export restrictions.

The RTX PRO 5500 is listed under Nvidia’s professional desktop graphics processing units, indicating it is a workstation product rather than a data center AI accelerator.

That distinction may matter because current US controls rely on performance-based thresholds aimed at advanced semiconductors and AI chips, rather than all graphics processing units.

The ministry has also guided China’s semiconductor self-sufficiency drive, giving it a policy role in technology procurement, though the report did not establish a formal approval process for each purchase.

Nvidia said US firms still face both US export controls and Chinese limits on US imports.

🔗 Source: Reuters

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