Chinese university buys Nvidia AI H200 chips despite US ban, records show

A Chinese university with ties to the army bought Nvidia’s powerful H200 AI chips last month despite being on a US export blacklist.

Northwestern Polytechnical University, a member of China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense” group of elite defence-focused universities, bought two H200 chips last month for 874,700 yuan ($123,000), according to an October 21 procurement record on its website, the Reuters news agency reports.

The chips were bought for its management school from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology rather than directly from Nvidia, the record showed.

The Reuters investigation comes as Nvidia and its CEO Jensen Huang face mounting scrutiny in Washington, DC, over his lobbying for looser ⁠⁠restrictions on sales of AI chips to China, following reports alleging he was targeted by a Chinese spying operation.

The H200 is among Nvidia’s most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems and is subject to US export licence approvals, which are normally denied for blacklisted institutions such as Northwestern Polytechnical.

Northwestern Polytechnical also bought access this year to H200 ‌‌chips and other powerful Nvidia AI processors through five contracts for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies, procurement records show.

Nvidia CEO Huang has argued that continued US sales to China would preserve US technological leadership and keep Chinese customers reliant on its technology.

However, some US lawmakers say access to Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips can speed China’s development of AI systems for weapons design, intelligence analysis and military modernisation.

US blacklist

Based in the northwestern city of Xi’an, Northwestern Polytechnical conducts research related to military aircraft, missiles and satellites.

Washington’s Department of Commerce added the university to its trade blacklist, known as the Entity List, in 2001 over the institute’s alleged involvement in missile-proliferation activities, and its military research. Washington tightened the restrictions in 2019, making licences for exporting controlled US technology to the university subject to a policy of denial in most circumstances.

Northwestern Polytechnical’s purchases show how Chinese institutions with military ties continue to obtain US AI computing power through domestic suppliers, either by buying chips outright or renting access to servers containing them.

A Reuters review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year found universities and research institutions buying US-restricted Nvidia chips or renting access to Nvidia-powered computing services ⁠⁠that use such chips through domestic suppliers.

Several had close links to China’s defence industry or military research.

US President Donald Trump’s administration began allowing some H200 exports to China on a case-by-case basis in January. But that policy did not lift the separate restrictions applying to Entity List organisations such as Northwestern Polytechnical.

Both Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress have urged stronger controls on China’s access to advanced AI ⁠⁠chips, such as chip-tracking requirements, and greater congressional oversight of exports.

The Huang affair

This comes at a time of increased pressure on Nvidia’s Huang. Republican US Senator Kevin Cramer from the Senate Banking Committee called on Huang to step down as CEO after his intimate relationship with Alice Huang, accused of working for Chinese intelligence, plunged the company into crisis.

“The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I ⁠⁠just think he’s got to go,” Cramer told Politico late on Tuesday.

Three Republican congressional committee chairmen have requested a briefing with Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with the alleged Chinese intelligence operative.

Jensen Huang – who cofounded Nvidia, the world’s second-most valuable company after Apple, more than three decades ago – admitted on Sunday to being unfaithful to his wife, but the company said it has no reason to believe US national security or confidential information has been compromised.

Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation on Sunday into whether the 63-year-old Taiwan-US dual national had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation after media reports linking him to Alice Huang, a former executive at a Singapore-based data centre company.