Nvidia Corp has yet to sell any of its H200 chips to China two months after US President Donald Trump’s decision to allow shipments of the artificial intelligence (AI) processors to the world’s second-largest economy, US Department of Commerce Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement David Peters said on Tuesday.
Peters told the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee that the US was boosting efforts to crack down on smuggling of advanced semiconductors used in AI.
US Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove asked how many H200s have been approved for sale to China, to which he said: “My understanding is that so far, none.”
Photo: Reuters
While Peters does not directly participate in the licensing process, his comments on H200s offer a rare window into the workings of the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees required US approvals for exports of sensitive technology.
His testimony came as investors await Nvidia’s earnings release, when the company might outline progress toward regaining access to the lucrative Chinese market.
Trump in December last year moved to allow Nvidia to sell H200s to select Chinese customers, but formal rules for the process, published last month by the bureau, have imposed conditions that make it harder to earn the green light.
More broadly, Peters said that there is a stringent approach to cracking down on companies that are contravening export control rules.
He highlighted a US$252 million settlement earlier this month between the US and Applied Materials Inc, which he said reached the statutory ceiling and was the largest in bureau history.
Underscoring this approach, Peters also said he would be open to increasing the statute of limitations to 10 years and lifting enforcement penalties to potentially more than four times the value of unlawful transactions.
“The message to everyone paying attention should be: Follow the law or face the consequences,” Peters said.
He also answered a question from US Representative Bill Huizenga on semiconductor smuggling specifically, calling it a top enforcement priority.
“There is chip smuggling,” Peters said. “It is going on.”
When asked specifically about potential Nvidia violations related to the company’s work with engineers at Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), Peters declined to comment, but said that the bureau would “enforce without regard to who the violator may be.”
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