China weighs letting ByteDance, Alibaba buy Nvidia chips

China's technology ministry has told Alibaba, ByteDance and other companies it intends to approve their purchases of Nvidia's new RTX Pro 5500 chip. The Information reported the plan Saturday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Reuters said it could not independently verify the report. ByteDance is seeking to order 1 million of the chips to power its AI models, according to The Information. The outlet said the ministry had asked companies to disclose their planned purchase volumes and intended use.

Nvidia launched the RTX Pro 5500 on September 14, built on its Blackwell architecture with 84 gigabytes of memory. It is sold for high-end professional workstations rather than as a dedicated AI accelerator. Chinese buyers have faced restrictions on importing Nvidia's most advanced AI chips since Washington tightened export controls.

The potential approval would be a shift for Beijing, which has restricted Chinese companies from buying advanced foreign AI chips as it promotes domestic alternatives from Huawei. Neither China's ministry nor Nvidia had commented publicly on the report as of Saturday.