Empty Offices, Sanctions Links Found at Two Firms Approved to Buy Nvidia H200 Chips

An investigation found that two Chinese companies approved to purchase Nvidia H200 chips had empty offices and links to sanctioned Chinese military suppliers. The New York Times reported that around two dozen Chinese firms have received export licenses, including well-known companies and lesser-known firms whose offices appeared deserted.

Empty offices and unknown addresses

According to The New York Times, addresses for two Chinese companies approved to purchase Nvidia H200 chips led to empty offices, and receptionists at the buildings were unfamiliar with them. People working nearby said they had never heard of the companies or seen anyone go to the deserted spaces. The offices reportedly contained some office furniture but otherwise appeared to be empty shells.

Links to sanctioned firms

The two lesser-known approved firms are New Matrix and Maginfra. Public company records reportedly show that New Matrix was founded by Li Bin, who, along with two other primary owners, is connected to Wise Road, a Chinese private equity firm sanctioned by the United States for helping Beijing acquire sensitive chip technologies. Mr. Li chairs Tsinghua Unigroup, a tech conglomerate partly owned by the Chinese government, and owns New H3C Semiconductor Technologies, which has been added to the Commerce Department's Entity List for cooperating with the Chinese military. Maginfra is suspected of being linked to Inspur, which Washington blacklisted in 2023 for supporting the People's Liberation Army; the companies reportedly share personnel, patents, and a similar government ownership structure.

Former China director for the White House National Security Council Liza Tobin told the publication: "I have a ton of concerns that neither the Commerce Department or Nvidia is doing the due diligence needed to ensure that the licensing terms are being followed."

Other suspicious approvals

These two firms are not listed as final users of Nvidia's AI chips. Instead, they are supposed to assemble them into AI servers, which would then be forwarded to a final user, although their customers are unclear. Another company that received a license, Zhejiang Yindun Cloud Technology, reportedly has executives related to the founder of Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group, a data center operator that has sold compute capacity to Chinese military contractors. It is also reportedly partly operating out of a Range data center.

Policy background

President Donald Trump banned the export of Nvidia AI GPUs in April 2025, including chips customized to meet the performance ceiling Washington set for AI processors. The president reversed the decision late last year in exchange for a 25% cut of the sale, but it still took more than eight months for the first H200 shipments to arrive in China. Beijing's refusal to give Chinese tech companies the green light to buy the chips for the first few months of the year caused the delay. Once China lifted its import ban on Nvidia chips, several Chinese companies applied for licenses, and The New York Times reported that around two dozen firms have already received approval, including these questionable ones.

Sources: Tom's Hardware