A New York Times investigation published on November 7 found that the U.S. Commerce Department approved roughly two dozen Chinese companies to buy or handle Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips, including firms whose listed offices stood empty and whose owners have ties to companies already on the U.S. trade blacklist. The findings raise questions about how closely the export licenses were vetted.
The clearest case in the reporting is New Matrix, a Beijing company created about 17 months ago that was approved earlier this year to assemble H200 chips into AI servers. When reporters visited its listed address in a newly built industrial park on the northwest fringe of Beijing, they found a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be. The company did not appear in the building directory, and property managers at the park said they had no record of it. Its website named no staff, advertised no jobs, and gave no history.
Chinese corporate records examined for the investigation tie New Matrix's owners to Wise Road Capital, a private equity firm Commerce placed on its Entity List in December 2024 for aiding China's efforts to acquire sensitive semiconductor entities. Two analysts who reviewed the records told the Times they believed New Matrix may be a front for firms associated with the fund. A second approved company, Maginfra, also had a deserted office when reporters visited, and analysts cited by the Times linked it to Inspur, a server maker added to the Entity List in 2023 for acquiring U.S. items in support of China's military modernization efforts.
Neither New Matrix nor Maginfra was approved as an end user. Both were cleared to assemble or handle chips for other customers, and the investigation did not establish that either firm had received a single H200, or that any approved chips had gone to China's military. The approved list also includes Baidu, BYD, and Tesla Shanghai, which were allowed to buy tens of thousands of chips each. Even so, H200 shipments to China were less than 1 percent of Nvidia's data center revenue in the quarter that ended in July.
The licenses followed a January 2026 policy shift, when the Bureau of Industry and Security moved H200 reviews from a presumption of denial to case-by-case consideration, requiring applicants to describe customer screening and security measures. On November 5, Commerce extended its pause on the affiliates rule, which would automatically apply Entity List restrictions to companies at least 50 percent owned by listed parties. The pause, due to end November 9, will now run through January 10, 2027, and the reports do not show what stake listed parties hold in New Matrix.
Commerce and Nvidia both defended the process. The Bureau of Industry and Security said it carefully reviews applications for national security risks, noting that it imposed 324 million dollars in penalties for export violations in 2025 and hired more than 90 enforcement officers in 2026. Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said it makes no sense for the Chinese military to depend on American technology. Liza Tobin, a former China director on the White House National Security Council, took the opposite view, saying she had many concerns that neither Commerce nor Nvidia was doing the due diligence needed to ensure the licensing terms were being followed. With about 600,000 H200 chips reported to be waiting in Hong Kong for Beijing's approval to enter the mainland, whether Commerce reviews or revokes any of these licenses is now the question to watch.