Blacklisted Chinese University Bought Nvidia H200 AI Chips
Procurement records show a US-blacklisted, military-linked Chinese university bought Nvidia H200 chips, exposing gaps in US AI chip export controls.
Raja Awais Ali
11/11/20263 min read
Blacklisted Chinese University Bought Nvidia H200 AI Chips, Records Show
A Chinese university with deep ties to the People’s Liberation Army bought Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chips last month, despite sitting on a US trade blacklist, according to procurement records reviewed by Reuters. The purchase points to gaps in Washington’s efforts to limit China’s access to advanced technology.
Northwestern Polytechnical University, based in Xi’an, bought two H200 chips for 874,700 yuan (about $123,000), according to an October 21 record on its own website. The chips were bought for its management school, and the seller was a Chinese supplier, Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology, not Nvidia. The H200 is one of Nvidia’s most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems. Exporting it requires a US licence, and such licences are normally denied to blacklisted institutions like Northwestern Polytechnical.
The university belongs to the “Seven Sons of National Defense,” a group of Chinese universities under US sanctions with a history of defence research for Beijing. It conducts research related to military aircraft, missiles and satellites. The US Commerce Department added it to the Entity List in 2001 over alleged involvement in missile proliferation and military research. In 2019, it tightened the restrictions, so licence applications for controlled US technology are generally denied.
The H200 purchase was not the university’s only route to restricted hardware. Procurement records show it also bought access to H200 chips and other powerful Nvidia processors this year through five contracts for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies. Two of those contracts were awarded by its cybersecurity school in January. Each ran seven months and covered servers with eight H200 chips, worth 441,700 yuan and 441,000 yuan, for fine-tuning AI models and reinforcement-learning training. The university also rented servers with eight A100 chips and eight A800 chips, models banned for export to all Chinese entities. In April, another university institute bought computing services requiring at least 24 A100 chips, in a 375,000 yuan contract for structural and fluid-dynamics simulations. The records say little about where the processors came from or where the rented servers operated.
Nor does the problem appear to be isolated. Reuters reviewed 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year and found universities and research institutions buying restricted Nvidia chips, or renting computing services that rely on them, through domestic suppliers. Several have close links to China’s defence industry or military research. Shenzhen University bought three H100 chips for 769,800 yuan in September. Wuhan University of Technology bought a server containing an H100 chip for 355,000 yuan in June, plus four A100 chips in a separate 344,000 yuan purchase. Beihang University, another of the Seven Sons, bought four A800 processors for 489,000 yuan in April. The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences was named in July and September procurement announcements for computing services using restricted H800 and A800 chips.
Reuters has previously reported that Chinese institutions obtained restricted Nvidia chips inside servers made by Super Micro Computer, Dell and Gigabyte through domestic resellers. It has also documented an underground market for chips sourced from overseas inventories and third-country intermediaries. Last week, it reported that small quantities of H200 chips had reached China through indirect routes while Beijing withheld approval for large-scale imports.
The findings arrive at a difficult moment for US policy. The Trump administration began allowing some H200 exports to China on a case-by-case basis in January, but that did not lift the separate restrictions on Entity List organisations such as Northwestern Polytechnical. The January rules also require safeguards to stop blacklisted entities and military end-users from remotely accessing chips exported under the policy.
Nvidia and CEO Jensen Huang are already facing growing scrutiny in Washington. Huang has lobbied for looser limits on chip sales to China, arguing that continued sales preserve American technological leadership and keep Chinese customers dependent on US technology. Some US lawmakers counter that access to Nvidia’s most powerful chips could speed China’s development of AI for weapons design, intelligence analysis and military modernisation. Members of both parties in Congress have urged tighter controls, including chip-tracking requirements and greater oversight of exports. Three Republican committee chairmen have requested a briefing with Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative, following reports that he was targeted by a Chinese spying operation.
Northwestern Polytechnical, Nvidia and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. The other universities named also did not respond, and Reuters could not find contact details for Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology.
The records show that stopping chips at the border is only part of the challenge. Domestic distributors, resellers and rented computing services give restricted hardware other routes to institutions that cannot buy it directly. If congressional pressure for chip tracking and tighter oversight grows, Nvidia may face more demands for accountability, and the November 18 briefing could be the next key moment in the debate.
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