Beijing is demanding tech companies including Alibaba and ByteDance justify their orders of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips, complicating the US chipmaker’s business in China after striking an export arrangement with the Trump administration.

The tech companies have been asked by regulators such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to explain why they need to order Nvidia’s H20 chips instead of using domestic alternatives, said three people familiar with the situation.

Some tech companies, who were the main buyers of Nvidia’s H20 chips before their sale in China was restricted, were planning to downsize their orders as a result of the questions from regulators, said two of the people.

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At least $1 billion worth of Nvidia’s advanced artificial intelligence processors were shipped to China in the three months after Donald Trump tightened chip export controls, exposing the limits of Washington’s efforts to restrain Beijing’s high-tech ambitions.

A Financial Times analysis of dozens of sales contracts, company filings, and multiple people with direct knowledge of the deals reveals that Nvidia’s B200 has become the most sought-after—and widely available—chip in a rampant Chinese black market for American semiconductors.

The processor is widely used by US powerhouses such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta to train their latest AI systems, but banned for sale to China.

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