Northwestern Polytechnical University, a Chinese university with deep ties to the People's Liberation Army, bought two Nvidia H200 AI chips in October despite sitting on a US export blacklist, according to an October 21 procurement record posted on the university's website. The purchase cost 874,700 yuan, about $123,000, and went through a domestic supplier rather than Nvidia itself.
The record shows the chips were bought for the university's management school from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology. The H200 is among Nvidia's most capable chips for training and running advanced AI systems, and exporting it requires a US licence that is normally denied to blacklisted institutions.
The outright purchase was one piece of a wider pattern. Northwestern Polytechnical also signed five contracts this year for rented computing capacity from Chinese companies, giving it access to H200s and other powerful Nvidia processors. Its cybersecurity school awarded two seven-month contracts in January, worth 441,700 yuan and 441,000 yuan, for access to servers with eight H200 chips each, to fine-tune AI models and run reinforcement-learning training.
Key facts
- 01Northwestern Polytechnical University bought two Nvidia H200 chips for 874,700 yuan (about $123,000), per an Oct. 21 record.
- 02The chips came from Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology, a domestic supplier, not directly from Nvidia.
- 03The university signed five contracts in 2026 to rent Nvidia compute, including two January deals for eight-H200 servers.
- 04Northwestern Polytechnical has been on the US Entity List since 2001; licences face a policy of denial since 2019.
- 05A review of 26 Chinese records found Beihang, Shenzhen University and others buying restricted Nvidia chips.
The university also rented access to servers carrying eight Nvidia A100 and eight A800 chips, both of which are banned from export to all Chinese entities. The records gave little detail on where the processors came from or where the rented servers physically ran, and the contracts went to several little-known Chinese technology suppliers.
Northwestern Polytechnical, based in Xi'an, researches military aircraft, missiles and satellites and belongs to the "Seven Sons of National Defense" group of Chinese universities. The US Commerce Department added it to the Entity List in 2001 over alleged missile-proliferation activities and military research, and in 2019 tightened the restrictions so that export licences for controlled US technology face a policy of denial in most circumstances.
A review of 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from this year found other universities and research institutions buying restricted Nvidia chips or renting Nvidia-powered computing through domestic suppliers. Shenzhen University bought three H100 processors for 769,800 yuan in September. Beihang University, another Seven Sons member, bought four A800 processors for 489,000 yuan in April, and Wuhan University of Technology bought a server with an H100 for 355,000 yuan in June.
The findings sit against a policy shift. Since January, the Trump administration has allowed some H200 exports to China on a case-by-case basis, with licensing rules that require safeguards to stop blacklisted entities and military end-users from remotely accessing the exported chips. That policy did not lift the separate Entity List restrictions covering Northwestern Polytechnical.
Nvidia, Northwestern Polytechnical and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security did not respond to requests for comment. Contact details for Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology could not be determined.
The records add pressure on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has argued that continued US chip sales to China preserve American technology leadership and keep Chinese customers reliant on Nvidia. Some US lawmakers counter that access to top Nvidia chips can speed China's AI work on weapons design, intelligence analysis and military modernization, and members of both parties have pushed for chip-tracking requirements and more congressional oversight of exports.
Huang is also under scrutiny over reports that he was targeted by a Chinese intelligence operation. Nvidia's board opened an independent investigation on Sunday, and the company said it has no reason to believe US national security or confidential information has been compromised. Senator Kevin Cramer, a Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, has called on Huang to step down as CEO.
“The potential for extortion is so tremendous that something as sensitive as Nvidia chips, I just think he's got to go”— Kevin Cramer, US Senator, Senate Banking Committee
Three Republican congressional committee chairmen have requested a briefing with Huang on November 18 over his reported contacts with the alleged operative.
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