The US let Nvidia sell chips to an empty office in China

Concerns are being raised that neither the Commerce Department nor Nvidia are doing their due diligence when it comes to vetting Chinese firms cleared to handle the company’s H200 AI chips. According to The New York Times, New Matrix is on the list of approved firms, yet its offices are empty, “a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be.” In fact, the paper could find little evidence that the company exists in any meaningful way:

The government is approving sales of Nvidia’s AI chips to Chinese firms with ties to blacklisted companies.

The government is approving sales of Nvidia’s AI chips to Chinese firms with ties to blacklisted companies.

Only scant information can be found online about New Matrix, which was created 17 months ago. At the building that New Matrix lists as its address, a company directory does not include the firm. At the nearby property management agency for the industrial park, a receptionist and a manager both said they had no record of the company.

What little information can be found about New Matrix is concerning. Its owners have ties to a Chinese private equity firm that has been blacklisted by the US government since 2024. And according to the Times, this is not a rare lapse in oversight, but a troubling pattern of companies connected to entities with national-security-related trade restrictions being approved to purchase Nvidia chips.

Nvidia had been restricted from selling chips to China during the Biden presidency. But the Trump administration relaxed those limits after Nvidia agreed to give the government a 15-percent cut of all sales. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, also launched an intense lobbying campaign and was apparently targeted by China’s Ministry of State Security in a spying plot.

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