By David Shepardson and Karen Freifeld
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – A top U.S. official told Congress on Tuesday that “very few” Nvidia H200 chips to date have been shipped to China or Hong Kong.
In May, Reuters reported the Commerce Department had cleared around 10 Chinese firms to buy Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chip, the H200, but no deliveries had been made. Jeffrey Kessler, under secretary of commerce for industry and security, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that H200 chip shipments have begun but the number was “very few.”
Later in the hearing, Kessler said it was a “trivial” amount of chips. He said the Commerce Department has provided a confidential list of applications for H200 chips and their status to Congress but did not elaborate.
The chip shipments are being closely watched because the H200 is one of Nvidia’s most advanced AI processors, and sales to China have become a flashpoint in the broader U.S.-China technology rivalry. Washington has sought to limit Beijing’s access to cutting-edge chips that could be used for military applications.
U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the committee, on Tuesday criticized the department for not adding any Chinese companies to an export control list since October, which is the longest period in more than a decade.
He said President Donald Trump “has turned (export controls) into a bargaining chip in broader negotiations with China” and “weakened existing safeguards, including by approving licenses for advanced AI chips destined for China.”
Kessler defended the department’s posture and said it was important to enforce the existing list of Chinese companies facing restrictions.
Reuters reported last month that the Commerce Department has held off on adding China’s AI startup DeepSeek, memory chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies and more than 100 other companies flagged as national security risks to the “Entity List,” according to two people familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration tries to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing.
U.S. companies cannot ship goods, software and technology to companies on the list without a license, which is likely to be denied.
Kessler also defended the decision of the Trump administration on Friday to loosen export controls on the United Arab Emirates, making it easier to export Nvidia AI chips, military equipment, commercial satellites and spacecraft in a boost to relations between the two allies.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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