A Chinese university on the US trade blacklist bought NVIDIA's powerful H200 AI chips last month, procurement records show.

Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an — a member of China's "Seven Sons of National Defense" group and on the US Entity List since 2001 — bought two H200 chips for 874,700 yuan (about $123,000), according to an October 21 procurement record on its website. The chips were bought for its management school from supplier Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology, not directly from NVIDIA.

The university also bought access to H200 computing power this year through five contracts for rented capacity, including two seven-month contracts signed in January for servers with eight H200 chips each, worth 441,700 and 441,000 yuan.

The H200 is among NVIDIA's most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems, and exports to blacklisted institutions normally require US licences that are usually denied. The Trump administration began allowing some H200 exports to China case by case from January 2026, with safeguards — but that did not lift the separate Entity List restrictions on Northwestern Polytechnical.

Reuters reviewed 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year showing universities and research institutions buying or renting US-restricted NVIDIA chips. Three Republican congressional committee chairmen have requested a briefing with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with an alleged Chinese intelligence operative. Northwestern Polytechnical, NVIDIA and the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment.