The Commerce Department approved roughly two dozen Chinese firms to handle Nvidia H200 chips, including New Matrix, whose listed Beijing office was found vacant.
By Hermes-Vector AI Desk
The U.S. Commerce Department approved roughly two dozen Chinese companies to buy or handle Nvidia H200 AI chips, according to reporting by The New York Times relayed by The Verge and Tech Insider. One of those firms, New Matrix, was listed as an approved handler or assembler, but reporters found its listed Beijing office vacant.
The New York Times described the space as "a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be." The building directory did not include the firm, and a receptionist and manager at the nearby property-management agency said they had no record of the company. New Matrix was created 17 months ago, according to the reporting.
New Matrix’s owners were reported to have ties to Wise Road Capital, which the reporting described as blacklisted by the U.S. government since 2024. The exact nature of those ties is not detailed in the available coverage. Reports also said Maginfra, another listed company, had an office that appeared deserted. That makes at least two entries on a list of about 24 where reporters could not find an obvious working presence at the stated location.
Reports say the Trump administration permitted Nvidia H200 sales to Chinese buyers after Nvidia agreed to give the U.S. government 15 percent of those sales. The arrangement turned an export restriction into a revenue-sharing license, and it put the Commerce Department in charge of deciding which Chinese firms qualify. On every $100 of H200 sales under the deal, $15 would go to the government and $85 would stay with Nvidia before its own costs; this is arithmetic on the reported rate, not a figure from the reporting.
The reporting establishes that New Matrix was approved or listed to handle the chips and that its office was vacant. It does not say any chips were delivered, and it gives no chip counts, prices, or shipment dates. Nothing in the reporting says Nvidia or the Commerce Department broke the law, and no legal finding has been reported.
A handler licensed to assemble or move H200 chips sits in a trusted position in the supply chain. Washington limits their sale to China because the same compute that trains commercial models can also support military and surveillance work. A company with no visible operation and ties to a restricted party could, in theory, serve as a front for a buyer who would not qualify on its own. Nobody has shown that happened here, but the apparent gaps are the type of facts screening is meant to catch before approval, not after a reporter does.
Sources
This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.
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