PLA-Linked Chinese University Bought Nvidia H200 Chips Despite U.S. Blacklist, Reuters Finds

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 (TodayViralUSA) — A Chinese university with close ties to the People’s Liberation Army purchased Nvidia’s advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips last month despite sitting on a U.S. export blacklist, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing Chinese procurement records.

The findings add to pressure on Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang, who faces growing scrutiny in Washington over his push for looser limits on AI chip sales to China.

Bought through a domestic reseller

Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, one of China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense” universities, bought two H200 chips for 874,700 yuan, about $123,000, according to an Oct. 21 procurement record. The chips were purchased for its management school from a company called Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology, not directly from Nvidia.

The university, which conducts research on military aircraft, missiles and satellites, was added to the Commerce Department’s Entity List in 2001. Restrictions tightened in 2019, so export licenses to it are denied in most cases.

Records also show the university rented access this year to servers powered by H200, A100 and A800 chips through several contracts with Chinese cloud providers, including two seven-month deals awarded in January for AI model training.

A wider gray market

A Reuters review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year found universities and research institutes buying restricted Nvidia chips, or renting computing power built on them, through little-known domestic suppliers. Shenzhen University bought three H100 processors in September, and Beihang University, another defense-linked school, bought four A800 chips in April.

The Trump administration began allowing some H200 exports to China on a case-by-case basis in January, but that policy did not lift restrictions on Entity List institutions and requires safeguards against remote access by blacklisted or military users.

Nvidia, Northwestern Polytechnical and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Huang due on Capitol Hill

Lawmakers from both parties have called for tighter controls, including chip-tracking requirements. Three Republican committee chairmen have asked Huang for a Nov. 18 briefing on his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative.