Nvidia H200 sales to China stall despite US approval

The U.S. approval of H200 sales to China—yet no shipments—reveals a shift from licensing control to operational blockade. Technically, prolonged absence of H200-class compute forces Chinese AI developers to accelerate adoption of domestic HBM and interconnect stacks, pushing Cambricon and Ascend ecosystems to rebuild software layers. Compliance-wise, Nvidia faces secondary sanction risks: Washington could halt shipments anytime under 'end-user verification,' inflating supply chain costs and damaging trust. Competitively, Huawei’s Ascend 910B and Alibaba’s Pingtouge are seizing this window to scale alternatives, accelerating de-Nvidiaization. Over the next 18 months, U.S.-China AI decoupling will normalize as 'open in name, closed in practice,' granting Chinese chipmakers strategic depth for system-level innovation despite near-term pressure.