A unit of telecoms equipment maker ZTE and two other Chinese firms have received U.S. approval to purchase advanced AI chips from Nvidia and AMD, according to documents and people familiar with the matter, expanding the known list of Chinese companies cleared to buy this hardware beyond the country’s largest internet groups. A licensing list quietly growing beyond Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance to include a telecoms-equipment maker is what NewsTrackerToday threads to as the more revealing detail than the chip specifications themselves.
ZTE Kangxun Telecom and server maker Maginfra have both been cleared to purchase Nvidia’s H200 chips, one of the company’s most powerful AI accelerators and a focal point of the broader U.S.-China tech rivalry. Separately, Zhuhai Hengqin Yunxiang Zhisheng Network Technology, a subsidiary of a major Chinese cloud computing company, has been cleared to use AMD chips that compete directly with the H200. None of the three firms had been previously reported as holding U.S. clearance.
Daniel Wu, who covers geopolitics and energy, reads the export-control mechanics behind this specific expansion: “Around ten Chinese firms, including the largest internet platforms, were cleared earlier this year, but actual chip deliveries stalled because the approvals sat caught between Washington’s licensing requirements and Beijing’s own import scrutiny. Extending clearance to a telecoms-equipment unit and a cloud subsidiary, rather than another top-tier internet name, suggests Washington is now working through a longer, more granular list rather than just the handful of companies everyone already expected to see.” That granularity, more than the specific three names, is what NewsTrackerToday maps against as the actual shape of how this licensing process is unfolding month to month.
The approvals arrive alongside a notable signal from the Chinese side: some Chinese cloud firms have recently told partners and clients they may soon actually be able to obtain H200 chips, according to people familiar with the discussions, suggesting Chinese authorities may be easing their own import scrutiny after months of deals sitting approved but undelivered.
Liam Anderson reads the market implications: “Every incremental approval, and especially every signal that Chinese-side import reviews are loosening, matters for Nvidia and AMD’s China revenue assumptions. Investors have spent over a year discounting China as a reliable growth market because approved deals kept stalling on delivery. If Chinese authorities are genuinely starting to let approved shipments through, that’s a real, if still uncertain, upside case neither company has been able to bank on in its own guidance.” That delivery uncertainty, more than the approval count, is what NewsTrackerToday pins on as the actual variable determining whether this translates into real revenue.
Washington has steadily tightened restrictions on advanced AI chip exports to China since 2022, citing concerns about military applications, while simultaneously allowing H200 sales to proceed on the theory that broad global access helps preserve American technological dominance in the category. Nvidia has consistently pushed to maintain access to China as one of the largest computing markets in the world, even as the approval and delivery process remains slower and more uncertain than a straightforward license grant would suggest.
None of this confirms that chips are actually moving yet, only that the paperwork enabling them to move has expanded to firms outside the usual short list of Chinese tech giants. Whether Chinese authorities’ apparent softening on import scrutiny holds long enough to turn this expanded approval list into actual shipments, or whether it stalls again the way earlier rounds of clearance did, is what News Tracker Today closes with as the real test of whether this licensing expansion means anything beyond a longer list of names.
