Nvidia on CEO Jensen Huang setting conditions for Chinese companies for H200 chips; says: We have ...

Nvidia has denied a report which claimed that the American chipmaker has imposed certain payment terms on Chinese customers for its advanced H200 AI chips. The report, published by the news agency Reuters, suggested that Nvidia was demanding these “upfront payments” to protect itself from uncertainty on H200 chip sales in China.

However, Nvidia says this is not true, stating that it does not ask any of its customers to pay for products they haven't received.An Nvidia spokesperson issued a statement on Tuesday, stating, "We do not require upfront payment and would never require customers to pay for products that they do not receive." The chips in question are the Nvidia H200. Reuters claimed that Nvidia's standard terms for Chinese clients have previously included advance payment requirements, however, they were sometimes allowed to place a deposit rather than make a full payment upfront.

What the report said on Nvidia’s conditions for H200 chips

Previously, Reuters claimed that Nvidia has set stringent terms for Chinese technology companies seeking the H200 processor, which is a critical hardware for training large-scale AI models. These sources claimed that Nvidia is requiring full upfront payment in cash, no options for cancellations or refunds and no changes to configurations after placement.The report claimed that Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips that are priced at around $27,000 each.

This has vastly exceeded Nvidia’s current inventory of 7,00,000 units.Chinese chipmakers like Huawei have developed AI processors including the Ascend 910C, however, their performance still lags behind Nvidia's H200 for large-scale training of advanced AI models.According to a report by Bloomberg, China plans to approve some H200 imports as soon as this quarter and are said to be preparing to allow purchases for select commercial uses, while barring the military, sensitive government agencies, critical infrastructure and state-owned enterprises due to security concerns.