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The Trump-Xi summit produced a formal US licensing framework for Nvidia H200 chip sales into China. The US Commerce Department approved roughly 10 Chinese firms — Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com, with distributors Lenovo and Foxconn — to purchase up to 75,000 chips each. That is 750,000 H200 units in aggregate from a single licensing tranche. Not one has been delivered.

Jensen Huang was not on Trump’s original China delegation list. Trump called him personally on Tuesday, May 13, after reading media coverage of the conspicuous absence. Huang flew to Alaska, boarded Air Force One during the refuelling stop, and flew to Beijing. His arrival set off a celebrity-grade reception on Beijing’s streets — crowds, selfies, a Huawei tri-fold phone appearance — before the summit convened May 14–15.

The Stall: Both Sides Are Blocking

The impasse is bilateral, which is what makes it durable.

On the US side, the approved licensing terms include conditions that Beijing views as sovereignty problems. Chips must transit through US territory before shipping to China — a legal workaround to extract a 25% revenue share for the US government. Buyers must certify security procedures and commit to no military use. Beijing’s own State Council supply-chain regulations, issued earlier this year, require identification and elimination of foreign technology dependencies. Purchasing H200s in bulk from Nvidia, under US audit conditions, is incompatible with that directive.

On the Chinese side, Beijing has instructed its tech companies to pull back. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed in Senate testimony last month: “The Chinese central government has not let them, as of yet, buy the chips, because they’re trying to keep their investment focused on their own domestic industry.”

Chinese AI companies — Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud, ByteDance’s Volcano Engine — are being pushed toward Huawei’s Ascend silicon. DeepSeek has already demonstrated frontier-class models on domestic hardware. Beijing is using the H200 standoff as a forcing function to accelerate domestic alternatives. If the window closes now, the Huawei roadmap benefits. If it opens with conditions, sovereignty concerns remain.

The Numbers That Make Huang’s Trip Make Sense

China generated 13% of Nvidia’s total revenue before export controls tightened. Nvidia has estimated the Chinese AI market at $50 billion. The company’s Q1 FY2027 guidance, released May 20, is built on the assumption of zero China H200 recovery — meaning any formal unlock is upside against the baseline, not baked in.

At 75,000 chips per approved buyer across 10 firms, and with H200 pricing at roughly $35,000–$40,000 per unit depending on configuration, the approved tranche represents $26–30 billion in potential revenue. That number shrinks with the 25% US government take, which reduces Nvidia’s net, but the market opportunity is real.

The H200 is Nvidia’s second-most-advanced chip commercially available. The GB200 (Blackwell) remains outside the scope of China licensing discussions. H200 is not even the current frontier — but for Chinese AI labs that have been operating under GPU constraints since the Biden-era H20 ban in April 2025, H200 access would represent a step change.

What Changes, What Doesn’t

A formal licensing framework with “presumption of approval” for 10 named commercial firms is a different policy posture than the previous case-by-case presumption of denial. That shift matters even if deliveries are zero today.

What does not change: the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department, not Trump, controls H200 licensing. The export control architecture is bipartisan and congressional. A summit handshake is not a licence amendment. If Beijing’s domestic guidance holds — steering firms toward Huawei, flagging foreign chip purchases as supply chain risk — Chinese companies will remain reluctant buyers even under a US-approved framework.

The 90-day tariff truce from the May 12 trade agreement expires November 10, 2026. The semiconductor question is not resolved; it is deferred into a broader negotiation that Huang has made himself visible inside. That positioning matters regardless of whether chips move this quarter.

Key Numbers

• Firms approved: ~10 (Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, JD.com + distributors Lenovo, Foxconn)
• Per-buyer cap: 75,000 H200 chips
• Total tranche (approx.): 750,000 chips
• US revenue take: 25% of chip sale proceeds
• H200 delivered to China so far: 0
• China’s prior share of Nvidia revenue: 13%
• Nvidia estimated China AI market: $50 billion
• Nvidia Q1 FY2027 guidance baseline: zero China H200 recovery assumed