Nvidia plans to begin delivering its H200 AI chips to Chinese clients by mid-February 2026. These shipments will mark the first time its second-most powerful AI chip reaches the Chinese market and following a policy adjustment by the Trump administration that allows such sales on the condition that a 25% fee is imposed.
According to a Reuters report, the initial orders are expected to be fulfilled from existing inventory. Nvidia is planning to ship between 5,000 and 10,000 chip modules, equivalent to roughly 40,000 to 80,000 individual H200 chips.
Nvidia has informed customers that it will expand production capacity. One source noted that orders for this new capacity are expected to open in the second quarter of 2026. However, uncertainty remains: Beijing has not yet approved any H200 purchases, and the timeline may still change depending on government decisions.
The H200 is part of Nvidia’s previous-generation Hopper family. Although a newer Blackwell series has already been launched, the H200 remains widely used. Supply is still tight because Nvidia has shifted more of its production resources toward Blackwell and the forthcoming Rubin lineup.
Chinese tech firms including Alibaba and ByteDance have expressed interest in acquiring H200 chips. In terms of computing performance, the H200 is estimated to be around six times more powerful than the H20 — a downgraded AI chip Nvidia specifically designed for the Chinese market to comply with export controls.
The latest market forecasts suggest that shipments of Nvidia’s GB300 AI server racks could reach around 55,000 units next year, representing year-on-year growth of about 129%, driven mainly by large customers such as Microsoft and Meta. At the same time, a sharp rise in GDDR7 memory prices has prompted Nvidia to restrict supply of some 16GB graphics cards, including the 16GB versions of the RTX 5060 Ti and RTX 5070 Ti.
Market View:
What deserves even closer attention is that the next-generation Vera Rubin 200 platform is expected to start shipping in the fourth quarter of next year. This will provide sustained growth momentum for supply-chain manufacturers such as Foxconn and Quanta, with some suppliers already seeing order visibility extend as far as 2027.
