A company approved to buy Nvidia's H200 chips for China appears to barely exist
From the AI digest for Nov 7, 2026
Sources The New York Times The Verge reports
What happened: The New York Times, carried by The Verge, finds a company called New Matrix on the list of firms approved to buy Nvidia's H200 AI chips for China, despite scant evidence it exists: at the only address it lists, the offices are empty — "a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be" — the building's company directory doesn't include the firm, and the property management agency for its industrial park has no record of it. The company was created about 17 months ago, and its owners have ties to a Chinese private equity firm the US government has blacklisted since 2024. The paper frames this as more than a one-off: companies connected to entities facing national-security-related trade restrictions are being approved to purchase Nvidia chips. Such sales became possible when the Trump administration relaxed the limits kept in place under the Biden presidency after Nvidia agreed to give the government a 15 percent cut of all sales.
What's genuinely new: The vetting failure rather than the sales themselves: the named shell company, its empty offices, the blacklist ties, and the reported pattern of approvals that neither the Commerce Department nor Nvidia appear to have checked. The report lands inside the same China fight that produced last week's report of a Ministry of State Security plot to get an executive close to Jensen Huang.
Watch: whether Commerce reviews existing approvals or tightens vetting for Nvidia chip buyers, Nvidia's response, and whether more approved firms turn out to be tied to restricted entities.
Links: The Verge · Nov 7, 10:43 AM ET
More context: The Commerce Department has approved dozens of Chinese companies to handle Nvidia's H200 AI chips, some of which have ties to firms facing US trade restrictions, according to The New York Times. One approved firm, New Matrix, was set up 17 months ago, yet its listed office is "a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be," it appears in no building directory, and the industrial park's property managers said they had no record of it, The Verge reports. Such sales only became possible after the Trump administration relaxed the China limits kept under Biden, once Nvidia agreed to hand the government a 15 percent cut of sales, The Verge notes.