Nvidia Places 300,000 H20 Chip Orders Amid Renewed China Demand

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has reportedly ordered 300,000 H20 AI chipsets from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) following a surge in Chinese demand, according to multiple sources. This comes after the Trump administration lifted a sales ban earlier this month, allowing Nvidia to resume shipments of its H20 GPUs to China.

The H20, developed in response to 2023 U.S. export restrictions, is a scaled-down version of Nvidia’s advanced H100 and Blackwell GPUs but remains critical for China’s AI sector. Sources indicated Nvidia already holds 600,000–700,000 units in inventory and sold about 1 million H20 chips in 2024, per SemiAnalysis data.

CEO Jensen Huang, during a recent trip to Beijing, noted that future production would hinge on order volume and warned any supply chain restart could take nine months. Despite this new order, the U.S. Department of Commerce has not yet approved the export licenses required for shipping the chips, though Nvidia expects clearance soon.

Chinese tech giants like Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba previously stockpiled H20 chips to support AI models such as DeepSeek. Nvidia’s push to maintain a foothold in China comes amid fierce competition from Huawei and ongoing U.S.-China trade tensions, particularly over rare earth elements.

The April sales ban forced Nvidia to consider writing off $5.5 billion in inventory and forgo potential sales worth $15 billion. Restoring H20 shipments is seen as vital for keeping Chinese developers tied to Nvidia’s ecosystem and preventing market share erosion to domestic rivals.

Nvidia and TSMC declined to comment on the order, while U.S. authorities have yet to respond regarding export approvals.