A Chinese university with deep ties to the People's Liberation Army bought Nvidia's powerful H200 AI chips last month despite being on a US export blacklist, procurement records show, highlighting gaps in Washington's efforts to curb China's access to advanced technology, Reuters reported on Wednesday, November 11.

Source: Reuters via BusinessWorld

Northwestern Polytechnical University, a member of China's 'Seven Sons of National Defense' group of elite defence-focused universities, bought two H200 chips last month for 874,700 yuan (yaani about 8.75 lakh yuan, roughly $123,000), according to an October 21 procurement record on its website. The chips were purchased for its management school from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology rather than directly from Nvidia, the record shows, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via BusinessWorld

The purchases did not stop at the two processors. The university also bought access this year to H200 chips and other powerful Nvidia AI processors through five contracts for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies, procurement records show; its cybersecurity school awarded two seven-month contracts in January for access to servers containing eight H200 chips each, and it also rented access to servers containing Nvidia A100 and A800 chips, which are barred from export to all Chinese entities, according to the reports of the Reuters findings.

Source: Reuters via ANI / Indian Economic Observer

A wider pattern in 26 records

A Reuters review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year found universities and research institutions buying US-restricted Nvidia chips or renting access to Nvidia-powered computing services that use such chips through domestic suppliers. Among them, Shenzhen University bought three H100 processors — another high-end Nvidia AI chip banned by the US — for 769,800 yuan (yaani about 7.7 lakh yuan) in September, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via BusinessWorld

2H200 chips bought by Northwestern Polytechnical in the October 21 record
874,700 yuanPrice paid — about $123,000 (Reuters)
26Chinese procurement and corporate records reviewed by Reuters
2001Year the university was added to the US Entity List

Based in the northwestern city of Xi'an, Northwestern Polytechnical conducts research related to military aircraft, missiles and satellites. The US Commerce Department added the university to its trade blacklist, known as the Entity List, in 2001 over its alleged involvement in missile-proliferation activities and military research, and tightened the restrictions in 2019, making licences for exports of controlled US technology to the university subject to a policy of denial in most circumstances, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via BusinessWorld

The H200 is among Nvidia's most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems and is subject to US export licence approvals, which are normally denied for blacklisted institutions such as Northwestern Polytechnical. President Donald Trump's administration began allowing some H200 exports to China on a case-by-case basis in January, but the January licensing rules also require safeguards to prevent blacklisted entities and military end-users from remotely accessing chips exported under the policy, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via BusinessWorld

What is solid

  • Northwestern Polytechnical bought two H200 chips through a domestic supplier, per an October 21 procurement record on its own website reviewed by Reuters, and signed further contracts this year renting access to restricted Nvidia computing.
  • The university has been on the US Entity List since 2001, with restrictions tightened in 2019; H200 exports to China need US licences that are normally denied to blacklisted institutions.

What is only claimed

  • How the chips originally reached the domestic supplier, and whether Nvidia or any intermediary knowingly supplied a blacklisted end-user, is not established by the procurement records; Reuters said Northwestern Polytechnical, Nvidia and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to requests for comment.

The H200 has been at the centre of the US-China chip fight all month, from stockpile approvals to Congress's chip bills. Read the earlier story: H200 chips and the Hong Kong stockpile approval

What happens next turns on enforcement: the records show how restricted American computing power can move through domestic suppliers and rental contracts inside China even when the end-user is blacklisted, and whether Washington answers with tighter supplier and cloud-access rules — or treats the purchases as a loophole to close case by case — will shape how much advanced AI hardware China's defence-linked institutions can reach.