{"id":257854,"date":"2026-01-22T11:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T11:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/257854\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T11:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T11:30:09","slug":"china-techs-gpu-dilemma-pay-more-for-black-market-h200s-or-use-slower-local-ai-chips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/257854\/","title":{"rendered":"China tech\u2019s GPU dilemma: pay more for black-market H200s, or use slower local AI chips"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Chinese AI companies wanting high-performance artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia are facing a dilemma: source them from the black market at much higher prices, or accept lower performance domestic alternatives from the likes of Huawei Technologies.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">That is because Chinese customs officials are currently holding Nvidia\u2019s H200 chips at the border, despite Washington granting approval for the US company to ship its second most advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) to China, according to three people familiar with the matter, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Any orders for the H200 were \u201csuper sensitive\u201d right now, according to one source, who said it remained unclear when authorities would approve the imports.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The move, which signalled uncertainty from Chinese authorities over whether they would ultimately approve the import of H200 chips, had forced some buyers in urgent need to consider sourcing GPUs from the black market, two Nvidia GPU resellers in China told the Post on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2026. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/da61fadf-5497-4ae6-8b7e-ff176e2fa13f_8db2609f.jpg\" title=\"Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2026. Photo: AP\"\/>Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2026. Photo: AP<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">One reseller said he had received \u201ca couple of inquiries\u201d over the past two days for the H200, and that a bundled server that combined eight H200 GPUs was currently going for around 2.3 million yuan (US$330,403), a roughly 50 per cent premium to the official list price in mainland China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese AI companies wanting high-performance artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia are facing a dilemma: source them from the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,9265,5682,218,219,128228,2102,128230,5841,114,29137,128229,128231,6160,61,60,14742,96211,233,80,6116],"class_list":["post-257854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-ai-chips","tag-alibaba-group-holding","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ascend-series","tag-beijing","tag-biren-technology","tag-bytedance","tag-china","tag-chinese-customs","tag-cuda-ecosystem","tag-douyin","tag-huawei-technologies","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jensen-huang","tag-moore-threads","tag-nvidia","tag-technology","tag-tiktok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}