By: JBizNews Desk 🌎
Nvidia’s China chip business faces fresh scrutiny after a New York Times investigation reported that a Chinese company approved to assemble AI servers using its H200 processors had an empty listed office and owners linked to a US-blacklisted fund.
The New York Times reports that the Commerce Department cleared New Matrix earlier this year to assemble the advanced chips into computers used for artificial intelligence. When reporters visited its listed address in a Beijing industrial park, they found an empty office with exposed wiring. The building directory did not list the company, and the property’s managers said they had no record of it.
Chinese corporate records linked New Matrix’s owners to Wise Road, a private equity firm placed on the Commerce Department’s trade blacklist in 2024. The department said Wise Road had helped the Chinese government acquire companies with strategically sensitive semiconductor technology. Two analysts who reviewed the records told the Times they believed New Matrix could be a front for firms connected to the fund.
The investigation examines the screening behind US approvals for Chinese companies to buy or handle Nvidia’s H200 chips. President Donald Trump allowed sales of the processors to China in December, with chips routed through the United States so Washington could collect a 25% tariff on their value.
Roughly two dozen Chinese companies have received approval to buy or handle H200 chips, according to people familiar with the approvals cited by the Times. The group includes large companies such as Baidu, BYD and Tesla Shanghai, alongside firms that assemble chips into servers for other customers.
Commerce and Nvidia defend their safeguards
A spokesperson for the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security told the Times that the agency carefully reviews applications for national-security risks. The bureau said it imposed $324 million in penalties for export violations in 2025 and hired more than 90 enforcement officers this year.
Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said “it makes no sense for the Chinese military to depend on American technology.” He said the company sells its first, best and most technology in the United States, and that its limited H200 exports support American jobs and manufacturing.
Rizzo also said Beijing has restricted H200 imports to favor China’s own chipmakers. H200 shipments to customers based in China accounted for less than 1% of Nvidia’s data-center revenue in the quarter ending in July, according to financial disclosures cited by the Times. In August, Nvidia said its forecast for the current quarter assumed no data-center sales to China.
JBizNews Desk | Washington, DC
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