US President Donald Trump’s move to allow exports to China of Nvidia’s second-best artificial intelligence (AI) chip, the H200, will spur strong demand from the country’s tech giants, research institutes, and its defence-industrial complex.Beijing has not yet confirmed whether it will allow the chip to be sold in China, but a Reuters review of more than 100 tenders and academic papers shows it is already being supplied to domestic buyers via the grey market.The analysis shows the nature of customers in China who will jump at the chance for legal bulk buys of the H200 chip, which is many times more powerful than any chip Nvidia is allowed to sell there.China’s leading universities all have research teams focused on AI development, and the number of high-end chips they have at their disposal directly affects talent recruitment and research.One professor at Beijing Jiaotong University advertises that his laboratory owns eight H200 chips, allowing for AI model research.Researchers at the state-backed Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the Sun Yat-Sen, Tsinghua, and Shanghai Jiao Tong universities used four Nvidia H200 processors to train an AI model designed to detect whether an image is AI-generated, they showed in a paper published last month.In June, a state-run AI institute in the eastern city of Hefei issued a a tender for a server equipped with eight Nvidia H200 chips to power a “quantum AI model” project.Dozens of universities and research institutes nationwide have bought or sought to acquire H200 chips, the Reuters review showed.China hawks in Washington have balked at Trump’s moves to reverse the previous administration’s export controls, saying the Chinese military would use Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to turbocharge its capabilities.The Reuters review suggests H200 chips are already making their way into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army and closely-linked universities.In August, the PLA Air Force Medical University in Xian issued a tender for eight Nvidia H200 chips to train a large-language model training platform to support medical AI and biosurveillance research.Last Monday, the School of Cyberspace Security at Beihang University, one of China’s “Seven Sons”, or universities under US sanctions with a history of defence-related research, issued a tender seeking a supplier that could rent out H200-level computing power.Chinese entities increasingly rent usage time on a server fitted with banned Nvidia chips as a way to access restricted hardware without importing it.Even before Trump’s announcement, some Chinese AI cluster and data centre projects had set their eyes on large quantities of the H200 chip.In the eastern province of Jiangsu, a firm owned by the Binhai county government issued a tender in July for 48 servers equipped with 384 H200 chips, with deliveries due by year-end.Larger ambitions are visible in the far western region of Xinjiang, which has seen a massive AI infrastructure buildout in recent years as Chinese companies and authorities seek the cheapest land and electricity for huge data centre projects.A June 6 tender by Urumqi Jiangsuan outlines a plan for a 20,000-petaflop hub combining more than 8,000 H200 GPUs, 12,000 RTX 4090 GPUs and 4,500 servers fitted with Huawei Ascend 910C processors, the most powerful domestic AI chip now available.A separate 1.86bn yuan project in Burqin county in northern Xinjiang, unveiled in October 2024, details a green-energy compute centre dominated by 1,000 domestic chip servers but supplemented by a smaller H100 or H200 chip cluster of 100 servers.The H200’s less powerful predecessor, the H100 has been banned from export to China since late 2022.In the central province of Hubei, Xiaogan Yunqi Data Technology submitted a regulatory filing in October for a computing power project worth 307mn yuan, to deploy 128 H200 servers for telecoms giant China Unicom by next March.

Building on the deep-rooted historical ties and fraternal relations uniting the leaderships of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and their brotherly peoples, and in furtherance of the steadily advancing bilateral relationship between them, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, paid a visit to Saudi Arabia yesterday at the gracious invitation of Crown Prince and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud.The Crown Prince welcomed His Highness the Amir at Al-Yamamah Palace in Riyadh. The two leaders held an official session of talks during which they reviewed the close relations between the two countries, explored prospects for joint co-operation, and discussed avenues for further strengthening the relationship across various domains.Both sides commended the positive outcomes of the reciprocal fraternal visits exchanged between the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, and his brother, His Highness the Amir of Qatar, which have significantly contributed to enhancing the level of co-operation between the two states.Amid an atmosphere of cordiality, fraternity, and mutual trust, the Eighth Meeting of the Qatari-Saudi Co-ordination Council was convened during the visit, co-chaired by His Highness the Amir and the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, and attended by Their Highnesses, Excellencies, and distinguished members of the council. The co-chairs reviewed the distinguished bilateral relations, praised the achievements realised within the council’s framework, and affirmed the importance of sustaining and further developing joint co-ordination in priority areas, including political, security, and military; energy; industry; economy; investment; trade; technology; infrastructure; culture; tourism; and education.Both sides lauded the strength of bilateral economic ties and the scale of inter-trade, noting that trade exchange reached $930.3mn in 2024 (excluding the value of re-exported goods), marking a remarkable 634% increase compared to 2021. They underscored the importance of enhancing joint efforts to diversify and expand trade exchange, facilitate commercial flows, overcome any challenges that may arise, and capitalise on available opportunities in priority sectors within Saudi Vision 2030 and Qatar National Vision 2030 — transforming these opportunities into tangible partnerships that reinforce economic and commercial integration for the benefit of both countries and their brotherly peoples.The two sides welcomed sustainable bilateral investment co-operation through partnerships between sovereign wealth funds and investment companies. They affirmed the importance of intensifying reciprocal visits by officials from both the public and private sectors and holding investment meetings and business forums.They also highlighted the importance of enhancing the reliability and stability of global energy markets and ensuring the security of supply across all energy sources in service of the interests of producers and consumers alike, thereby supporting global economic growth. Both sides expressed their desire to explore ways of strengthening co-operation in energy fields, including electricity, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the development of related projects in a manner that yields mutual benefits for both economies.The two parties stressed the importance of bolstering co-operation in developing and sustaining energy-sector supply chains and enabling collaboration between companies to maximise the use of local resources, thus contributing to more resilient and efficient energy supplies.They agreed on the need to strengthen co-operation on climate policies within international agreements and regional and international bodies, and affirmed that such policies should focus on emissions rather than sources.Both sides further agreed on the importance of enhanced co-operation in the following areas:• The digital economy and innovation• Industry and mining and intensifying joint work towards industrial integration • Youth, sports, and cultural programmes and activities • Education, including the development of high-quality joint academic programmes • Media, including elevating the reliability of media content, promoting joint media production, and enhancing media coverage of events and occasions hosted by both countries • Cybersecurity • Health In the defence and security fields, the two sides affirmed their determination to strengthen and develop their defence partnership in a manner that serves their shared interests and supports efforts to enhance regional and international security and stability. They emphasised co-ordinated positions in confronting regional challenges to help ensure the security of the region and bolster its readiness. Both parties commended the existing level of security co-operation and co-ordination across all domains, including the exchange of expertise and security visits at all levels; information sharing related to traveller security; the organisation of training courses; participation in cybersecurity conferences held in both countries; border security; counter-narcotics efforts; and combating extremism, terrorism, and their financing, as well as fighting crime in all its forms. They expressed their aspiration to further strengthen this co-operation in a manner that enhances security and stability in both brotherly states.The two sides welcomed the signing of the High-Speed Electric Rail Link Agreement between the two countries, which will connect Riyadh and Doha via Dammam and Al-Hofuf. They noted that this project constitutes a major strategic initiative aligned with Saudi Vision 2030 and Qatar National Vision 2030, contributing to the facilitation of tourism and trade flows and deepening linkages between the two brotherly peoples.They also welcomed the signing of several agreements and memoranda of understanding during the visit, covering railway transport, investment promotion, food security, media co-operation, and collaboration in the non-profit sector.On international affairs, both sides reaffirmed their resolve to continue coordinating and intensifying efforts aimed at safeguarding international peace and security. They exchanged views on issues of mutual concern at both regional and international levels. The Saudi side expressed its appreciation for Qatar’s ratification of the Charter of the World Water Organisation, which aims to unify and strengthen global efforts to address water challenges and develop comprehensive solutions.At the conclusion of the visit, His Highness the Amir of Qatar expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, and to Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, for the warm reception and generous hospitality extended to him and his accompanying delegation. The Crown Prince voiced his best wishes for continued health and well-being to His Highness the Amir of Qatar, and for ever greater progress and prosperity to the brotherly Qatari people.