A Chinese university that the U.S. government has blacklisted for its military work bought two of Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips in October, according to a procurement record on the university’s own website first reported by Reuters on November 11.
Northwestern Polytechnical University, in Xi’an, paid 874,700 yuan, about $123,000, for the two processors, according to an October 21 record cited by Reuters. The chips were bought for the university’s management school from a company called Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology, not from Nvidia directly.
The H200 is among Nvidia’s most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems. Exporting it to China requires a U.S. license, and licenses are normally denied for blacklisted institutions such as Northwestern Polytechnical.
A defense university on the Entity List
Northwestern Polytechnical is one of China’s “Seven Sons of National Defense,” a group of elite universities that serve the defense industry and the People’s Liberation Army. Reuters reports that it conducts research related to military aircraft, missiles and satellites.
The Commerce Department added the university to its Entity List, the U.S. trade blacklist, in 2001 over alleged involvement in missile proliferation and military research. In 2019 Washington tightened the restrictions so that licenses to export controlled U.S. technology to the school face a policy of denial in most cases.
The Trump administration began allowing some H200 sales to China on a case-by-case basis in January. Reuters notes that this policy did not lift the separate restrictions on Entity List organizations, and that the January rules require safeguards to keep blacklisted entities and military end users from remotely accessing chips exported under it.
Buying and renting computing power
Outright purchase was only part of it. Procurement records reviewed by Reuters show the university’s cybersecurity school awarded two seven-month contracts in January, worth 441,700 yuan and 441,000 yuan, for access to servers containing eight H200 chips each. The work covered fine-tuning AI models and reinforcement-learning training.
The university also rented access to servers with eight Nvidia A100 chips and eight A800 chips, both of which are barred from export to any Chinese entity. In April, another university institute bought computing services requiring at least 24 A100 chips, in a 375,000 yuan contract for structural and fluid-dynamics simulations. Reuters said the university bought access through five rented-capacity contracts this year, and that the awards went to several little-known Chinese technology suppliers.
Reuters said its review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year found a wider market. Shenzhen University bought three H100 processors for 769,800 yuan in September. Wuhan University of Technology bought a server containing an H100 chip for 355,000 yuan in June and four A100 chips in a separate 344,000 yuan purchase. Beihang University, another of the “Seven Sons,” bought four A800 processors for 489,000 yuan in April.
The pattern was flagged earlier. In June, Bloomberg reported that at least seven Chinese universities supporting the military, including Beihang and Northwestern Polytechnical, were seeking access to H200 chips, according to its review of procurement records.
What the records do not show
The records establish that the university paid for the chips and the server time. They do not establish where the processors came from, who exported them, or where the rented servers physically operate. Reuters said the records offered “scant information” on those points. Without that chain, it is not yet possible to say which party, if any, broke U.S. export law. Any such conclusion would be speculation at this stage.
None of the parties answered questions. Reuters said Northwestern Polytechnical, Nvidia and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which enforces export controls, did not respond to requests for comment, and it could not find contact details for Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology.
Beijing’s own policy adds a complication. Reuters reported last week that small quantities of H200 chips had reached China through indirect routes while Beijing withheld approval for large-scale imports. Taken together, the records suggest restricted chips are reaching military-linked buyers through side channels while both Washington and Beijing limit the official trade.
Why it matters
The findings arrive as Nvidia and its chief executive, Jensen Huang, face pressure in Washington over his lobbying for looser limits on AI chip sales to China. Huang has argued that continued U.S. sales preserve American technological leadership and keep Chinese customers reliant on U.S. technology. Some lawmakers say access to the most powerful chips can speed China’s development of AI for weapons design, intelligence analysis and military modernization, and members of both parties have urged chip-tracking requirements and more congressional oversight of exports. Three Republican committee chairmen have asked Huang for a briefing on November 18 about his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative, Reuters reported.
In Right Side News’s assessment, the case shows a practical gap. A license regime can control what Nvidia ships, but a defense university can still buy from a domestic reseller or rent time on someone else’s servers. Chip-tracking requirements of the kind some lawmakers have urged are meant to follow chips after they leave the factory; whether they would have caught these purchases is unknown.
Sources
- Reuters (verbatim wire copy via Regional Media News/SRN News): Exclusive: PLA-linked Chinese university bought Nvidia H200 chips despite US blacklist, records show (Nov. 11, 2026)
- Al Jazeera: Chinese university buys Nvidia AI H200 chips despite US ban, records show (Nov. 11, 2026)
- Bloomberg (via Bloomberg Law): Nvidia’s AI chips sought by Chinese labs with ties to military (June 1, 2026)
Featured image: Northwestern Polytechnical University Chang’an campus gate, by Nishino Asuka, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
How this article was made: Right Side News researched and drafted this article with the help of AI tools. Sources are linked so readers can check them. Spot an error? Tell us in the comments and we will correct it.
