Chinese government orders companies to suspend purchases of NVIDIA’s H200

Shortly after the United States government approved the export of NVIDIA’s H200 GPU to China, the country took a measure that will complicate future transactions. At the behest of Beijing, several national companies had to suspend or postpone their hardware orders which is used to train artificial intelligence models.

The Chinese government’s intention is to prevent NVIDIA’s return to the country from representing the loss of important advances in the national industry. The expectation is that, even if H200 plates are released again, companies will be forced to purchase a “quota” of local products that must be used in their structures.

According to Reuters, the Chinese government is not exactly opposed to the corporation’s presence in its territorybut wants to deal with the situation in a measured way. Thus, he decided on the current shutdown as a way to prevent large stocks of the hardware from being created before a final solution is found.

NVIDIA demands advance payments from Chinese customers

In response to Beijing’s decision, NVIDIA has taken some steps to try to protect its revenue. From now on, it will only ship H200 GPUs to Chinese partners who are willing to pay for the components before they are transported.

Furthermore, Those who place orders will no longer have the option to cancel them, nor to request refunds of the amount invested.. To top it off, there will be no way to change order settings after they have been placed. As a result, the company must protect itself from instability, although it may reduce its customer base.

Sources consulted by Reuters state that, in specific cases, NVIDIA is willing to allow its customers to work with commercial insurance or offer asset guarantees to obtain the cards. These means are accepted as alternatives to the cash payments that the company started to make.

Since export of the H200 was allowed again to China, around 2 million units have already been ordered. This value far exceeds the stock of 700 thousand units maintained by the corporationwhich allows it to be more selective and restrictive in the requests it intends to fulfill.

Source: Reuters, Reuters (2)