The approval covers several hundred thousand H200 chips and was granted during Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang’s visit to China this week, the sources said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The initial approvals have been allocated mainly to three major Chinese internet companies, with other firms now lining up for subsequent batches, one of the sources said.

The sources declined to name the companies that received the first clearances.

China’s industry and commerce ministries and Nvidia had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.

By contrast, the decision follows weeks of uncertainty over access.

The H200, Nvidia’s second most powerful AI chip, has become a major flashpoint in US-China relations, with Beijing’s reluctance to allow imports emerging as the main obstacle to shipments despite strong Chinese demand and US export approval.

Earlier this month, the United States formally cleared Nvidia to sell the H200 to China, where appetite for the chip is strong, though Chinese authorities retain the final decision on whether shipments can enter the country.

In recent weeks, it was unclear whether Beijing would approve the imports as it sought to balance surging demand for advanced AI chips with the goal of nurturing its domestic semiconductor industry.

Chinese customs authorities had told agents that H200 chips were not permitted to enter China, Reuters reported earlier this month.

However, Chinese technology firms have placed orders for more than two million H200 chips, far exceeding Nvidia’s available inventory, Reuters reported last month.

It remains unclear how many additional companies will be approved in later batches or what criteria Beijing is using to determine eligibility.

In the background, Nvidia’s leadership has been active in China.

Huang arrived in Shanghai last Friday for routine annual celebrations with Nvidia’s China employees and has since travelled to Beijing and other cities, Reuters reported last week.

Balancing act

The approval of H200 imports suggests Beijing is prioritizing the needs of major Chinese internet companies that are spending billions of dollars to build data centers for developing AI services and competing with US rivals, including OpenAI.

Although Chinese companies such as Huawei have products that rival the performance of Nvidia’s H20 chip, previously the most advanced model Nvidia was allowed to sell in China, they still lag well behind the H200.

The H200 delivers roughly six times the performance of Nvidia’s H20 chip.

Still, Beijing has discussed requiring companies to purchase a certain quota of domestic chips as a condition for approval to import foreign semiconductors, Reuters has previously reported.