China conditionally approves DeepSeek to buy Nvidia's H200 chips - sources
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Fri, January 30, 2026 at 8:54 AM EST
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STORY: China has reportedly given its top AI startup DeepSeek approval to buy Nvidia's H200 AI chips.
That's according to two sources who added that regulatory conditions were still being finalised.
Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing sources, that ByteDance, Alibaba and Tencent had been given permission to buy more than 400,000 H200 chips in total.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters on Thursday that his company hadn't received such information.
He added he believed China was still finalising the licence.
Nvidia didn't respond to a request for comment on DeepSeek's approval.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Commerce and NDRC did not answer requests for comment either.
DeepSeek rattled the global tech sector early last year by rolling out AI models that cost a fraction of those being developed by U.S. rivals like OpenAI.
The H200 is Nvidia's second most powerful AI chip.
And has emerged as a major flashpoint in U.S.-China relations.
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