US Cleared Chinese Firms With Empty Offices and Blacklist Ties to Handle Nvidia's H200

The Times reported that New Matrix, a Beijing company set up 17 months ago and cleared this year to build H200 chips into AI servers, lists its address as a building in a newly built industrial park on the city's northwest edge. Reporters described the building as "a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be". The company does not appear in the building's directory, and a receptionist and a manager at the park's property management office said they had no record of it.

The findings matter because the case for selling the H200 to China has rested on Washington's ability to control who receives the chips. Export licences are meant to keep advanced American hardware away from parties the US considers a national security risk. If shell companies can pass that screening, the safeguards on one of the most contested parts of US technology policy are weaker than officials have suggested.

According to the Times, Chinese corporate filings tie New Matrix's owners to Wise Road Capital, a Chinese private equity firm. The Commerce Department put Wise Road on its entity list in 2024, alleging that it had helped Beijing acquire strategically sensitive semiconductor companies.

The paper reported that a second licensee, Maginfra, also had a deserted office when its reporters visited in September. Analysts cited by the Times link Maginfra to Inspur, the Chinese server maker that is on the entity list over its work with the Chinese military. Reports summarising the investigation said Maginfra shares staff and patents with Inspur.

The government has licensed about two dozen Chinese companies to buy or assemble H200 chips, according to accounts of the Times report. The Times described the two cases as part of a pattern rather than isolated lapses. Liza Tobin, a former China director at the White House National Security Council, told the paper she had serious concerns that neither the Commerce Department nor Nvidia was doing enough due diligence on the licences.

A spokesman for the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security said the agency reviews every application carefully for national security risks, the Times reported. Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo argued that it would make no sense for China's military to depend on American technology. Nvidia has described its dealings with Chinese entities as routine business that involved no exchange of sensitive information.

The Biden administration barred Nvidia from selling its most capable chips in China. President Donald Trump allowed H200 sales in December 2025 on condition that the US government receive a share of the revenue. Accounts differ on the share: The Verge put it at 15 percent, while other reports put it at 25 percent. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang lobbied heavily for the change.

So far the sales have been small. H200 shipments to China accounted for less than 1 percent of Nvidia's data centre revenue in the quarter ending in July, according to reports on the investigation. Beijing has also slowed purchases by telling Chinese buyers to rely less on US chips.

The report adds to political pressure on Nvidia. US intelligence has concluded that China's Ministry of State Security recruited Alice Huang, an executive at the Chinese company Megaspeed, to gather information on American AI chips. The Republican chairs of three House committees have asked Jensen Huang to brief them on November 18 about his connections to her, and the licensing questions raised by the Times are likely to come up at that briefing.