Washington‘s export restrictions may not block Nvidia’s newest workstation chip from getting to Chinese customers, and Beijing looks prepared to open the door.
Two people familiar with the matter said some industry executives believe the RTX Pro 5500 falls outside US export restrictions.
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Beijings Industry Ministry sought purchase numbers from ByteDance, Alibaba and other companies. Some were then told the government plans to sign off, a source told The Information.
Chipmaker calls Washingtons controls outdated as 84GB card awaits launch
The report has not been independently verified.
“US firms continue to be restricted by a combination of outdated US export controls, which cover gaming products released nearly a half a decade ago, and Chinas own limits on US imports,” an Nvidia spokesperson said.
Nvidias product page for the RTX Pro 5500 lists it as a Blackwell workstation card with 84GB of GDDR7, designated for rack-mounted configurations. Buyers can still only register for availability alerts.
Seven Chinese firms hold H200 licenses, but no chips arrived by May
Beijing went the other way a year ago. China‘s Cyberspace Administration told the country’s major tech companies to stop testing and cancel orders for Nvidias RTX Pro 6000D, Cryptopolitan reported in September 2025.
Nvidias H200 is an example of how far a signal can sit from a sale. Cryptopolitan reported that in January, Beijing told Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance to prepare H200 orders, with buying plans that had to include some domestic chips.
Washington has granted seven Chinese firms, including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance and JD.com, licenses to buy up to 75,000 H200 chips each. As of May, none had yet been delivered, Cryptopolitan reported.