Commerce approved Nvidia chip sales to Chinese firms with empty offices and ties to sanctioned military suppliers

The Commerce Department cleared Chinese companies to buy Nvidia’s H200 AI chips, and a New York Times investigation found that some of the approved businesses barely seemed to exist. Reporters visited two company addresses and found empty offices. One company, New Matrix, had owners connected to Wise Road, a Chinese investment firm already on the U.S. trade blacklist. Another, Maginfra, had links to Inspur, a Chinese technology company sanctioned for working with China’s military. Other approved buyers had connections to Chinese military contractors and state-owned technology companies.

These weren’t just companies slipping through some smuggling route. The U.S. government reviewed their applications and approved them. Trump allowed H200 sales to China in December, and Commerce changed its licensing policy in January from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review. Now the question is how carefully those reviews were actually conducted. Former White House China adviser Liza Tobin questioned whether Commerce or Nvidia was doing enough due diligence.

There’s another piece to this. A separate NYT report published November 9 says a Commerce Department investigation into Singapore-based Megaspeed, suspected of routing Nvidia chips to Chinese clients, was abruptly paused after Nvidia’s general counsel contacted officials. The case was transferred to the Justice Department. The investigation had been underway for months. Commerce still hasn’t added a company to its China trade blacklist in more than a year, the longest gap in 18 years.

Washington says it wants to keep advanced AI chips out of the hands of China’s military. Meanwhile, companies connected to blacklisted firms are getting export approvals, and investigators looking into suspected diversion are being told to hand over their work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/08/technology/china-nvidia-chips-commerce-department.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/09/us/politics/commerce-nvidia-megaspeed-investigation.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/technology/ai-chips-china-blacklist.html

https://www.bis.gov/news-updates/press-releases/commerce-department-revises-license-review-policy-semiconductors-exported-china