A Chinese university with ties to the country's defense sector, Northwestern Polytechnical University, has purchased two Nvidia H200 AI chips last month, despite being on a U.S. export blacklist. The purchase, which was made indirectly through a domestic supplier, comes amid mounting scrutiny over Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's alleged ties to Chinese intelligence. The university bought the chips for its management school, according to procurement records on its website. The H200 is among Nvidia's most capable AI chips and is subject to U.S. export license approvals, which are typically denied for blacklisted institutions such as Northwestern Polytechnical.
The Reuters investigation reveals that the university also acquired access this year to H200 chips and other powerful Nvidia AI processors through five contracts for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies. The purchases highlight how Chinese institutions with military ties continue to acquire U.S. AI computing power through domestic suppliers, either by buying chips outright or renting access to servers containing them.
The acquisition of the H200 chips adds to the concerns in Washington over Nvidia's sales to China, as some lawmakers believe that access to Nvidia's most powerful AI chips can speed up China's development of AI systems for weapons design, intelligence analysis, and military modernization. The university was added to the U.S. Department of Commerce's trade blacklist in 2001 over alleged involvement in missile-proliferation activities and has continued to conduct research related to military aircraft, missiles, and satellites.
The controversy surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang continues to escalate as Republican US Senator Kevin Cramer from the Senate Banking Committee called for him to step down as CEO after his intimate relationship with Alice Huang, who is accused of working for Chinese intelligence, plunged the company into crisis. The Nvidia board announced an independent investigation into whether Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation following media reports linking him to Alice Huang, a former executive at a Singapore-based data center company.