The Ministry of Commerce has approved the export of Nvidia H200 chipsets to China

Nvidia’s advanced AI chips could return to China after all.

The Commerce Department will allow Nvidia to ship H200 chips to China, as Semafor originally reported, to authorized customers in the country. CNBC reported that the United States will receive a 25% discount on these sales.

The H200 chips are much more advanced than the H20 chips that Nvidia developed specifically for the Chinese market, but the company will only be able to ship H200 chips that are about 18 months old, Semafor said.

An Nvidia spokesperson told TechCrunch about the development: “We applaud President Trump’s decision to allow the American chip industry to compete to support high-wage jobs and manufacturing in America. Offering the H200 to approved commercial customers, vetted by the Commerce Department, strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America.”

The news report comes a week after US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that the decision to export H200 chips to China was in the hands of President Donald Trump.

The decision to send chips to China conflicts with Congress’ concerns about national security.

Pete Ricketts, a Republican senator from Nebraska, and Chris Coons, a Democratic senator from Delaware, introduced a bill on December 4 that would block the export of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China for more than two years.

The Safe and Feasible Chips (SAFE) Act would require the Commerce Department to deny any export license for advanced AI chips to China for 30 months. It is unclear when lawmakers will vote on the proposed bill, especially now that the Trump administration has given the green light to the sale of H200 chips.

While Congress has long been clear about sending advanced AI chips to China — on both sides of the aisle — President Trump has wavered on whether or not to allow exports.

The Trump administration hit chip companies like Nvidia with licensing requirements to send their chips to China in April before officially rescinding the Biden administration’s proliferation rule that would have regulated AI chip exports in May. Over the summer, the US government indicated that companies would be able to start sending chips to China as long as the government took a 15% cut of total revenue, as chips became a bargaining tool in trade talks with China.

However, by that point, the market for US-developed chips in China was strained.

In September, China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, banned domestic companies from purchasing Nvidia chips, leaving companies in the country dependent on less advanced domestic chips from Alibaba and Huawei.

Trump said Monday that Chinese President Xi Jinping “responded positively” to the latest H200 news in a post on Truth Social.

This story was updated on December 8 when the proposed decision was confirmed.