US approved Nvidia chip sales to a Chinese firm whose office was empty, NYT reports

The Verge, in an article dated 7 November 2026, reports on findings from The New York Times suggesting that the US government is approving Chinese buyers of Nvidia's AI chips even where those buyers have ties to blacklisted companies. The article says concerns are growing that neither the Commerce Department nor Nvidia is carrying out adequate checks on the Chinese buyers allowed to handle the company's H200 chips.

The example at the centre of the report is New Matrix, which appears on the list of approved firms. According to the Times, its offices are empty, described as a bare shell with wiring hanging where lights should be. The newspaper found little sign that the company exists in any real sense. It was created 17 months ago, and only limited information about it is available online. A company directory at the building listed as its address does not include it, and staff at the industrial park's property management office, a receptionist and a manager, told the paper they had no record of it.

The little that is known about New Matrix is itself a source of concern. Its owners are tied to a Chinese private equity firm that the US government has had on a blacklist since 2024. The Times says this is part of a pattern, not a single lapse, in which companies connected to entities under national-security-related trade restrictions have been approved to buy Nvidia chips.

For background, the article notes that Nvidia was barred from selling chips to China under the Biden administration. The Trump administration eased those limits after Nvidia agreed to hand the government 15 percent of all sales. CEO Jensen Huang also ran an intense lobbying effort.