Nvidia can sell the more advanced H200 AI chip to China — but will Beijing want them?

Look at what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said this year, and what Chinese tech giants and Beijing have done, and you’ll see potential hints as to how this lifting of the ban will play out.

The H200 is one of Nvidia’s most advanced chips for training and running AI on the market, but China has been on a drive to wean itself off American technology and boost local semiconductor development for AI.

“While this move reopens the door for U.S. revenue, the strategic train has already left the station,” Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC on Tuesday.

Huang said in a Bloomberg interview in May that Chinese tech giant Huawei’s semiconductor products for AI are “probably comparable” to Nvidia’s H200.

Alibaba and Baidu, as well as other Chinese startups, are also racing to bring competitive products to Nvidia to the market.

Huawei has been ramping up its Ascend line of AI products and using massive clusters of chips to try to get performance that is on par with Nvidia.

Huang told CNBC in June that Huawei would have the country’s chip needs covered if Nvidia were never allowed to sell there.

Meanwhile, Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu have been using stockpiled Nvidia chips from before the ban, combined with local semiconductors, to develop models that have become advanced.