Northwestern Polytechnical University, a Chinese institution with close ties to the People's Liberation Army, purchased Nvidia Corp. H200 AI chips last month despite the university's placement on a US export blacklist, according to records reviewed by Reuters1.
The Reuters report, published on November 11, identifies Northwestern Polytechnical University as having gained access to the NVIDIA H200 processors, though the mechanism by which the chips reached the blacklisted entity is not detailed in the available reporting.
The disclosure arrives alongside a separate report by The Information, as summarized by Outlook India, alleging that a Chinese businesswoman named Alice Huang used her connections with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and the company's distributors to facilitate approximately $7.5 billion in chip shipments to Chinese companies2. Those shipments reportedly involved around 240,000 Nvidia H100, H200, and A100 processors, some of which allegedly reached data centers serving Alibaba, Tencent, and Chinese AI laboratories.
Nvidia has launched an independent investigation into the allegations tied to Alice Huang, according to the Outlook India summary of The Information's report. The controversy has prompted renewed calls in Washington for tighter restrictions on advanced chip exports to China.
ANALYSIS The Northwestern Polytechnical University case and the Alice Huang allegations point in the same direction: US export controls on advanced AI chips are not preventing blacklisted or restricted Chinese entities from obtaining Nvidia hardware. The two reports surface different channels — one involving a direct purchase by a sanctioned university, the other alleging a $7.5 billion pipeline through a businesswoman's distributor relationships — but both describe outcomes the controls were designed to block.
Neither report specifies which intermediaries or jurisdictions were involved in routing the chips to Northwestern Polytechnical University. The Outlook India piece does not indicate whether Nvidia has commented on the university's acquisition specifically.