China's industry ministry has signaled approval for purchases of Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500 workstation chip, according to people familiar with the matter. The ministry sought purchase information from ByteDance, Alibaba, and other companies, telling some firms it plans to authorize the acquisitions.
Some industry executives believe the RTX Pro 5500 falls outside US export restrictions that have limited Chinese access to advanced Nvidia processors. The chip is a Blackwell workstation card featuring 84GB of GDDR7 memory designed for rack-mounted configurations.
Nvidia characterized US export controls as outdated, noting they restrict gaming products released years ago. The company has not yet launched the RTX Pro 5500, with availability currently limited to registration alerts.
History of US-China Chip Approvals
Beijing's apparent openness to the RTX Pro 5500 contrasts with earlier actions. A year prior, China's Cyberspace Administration directed major tech companies to stop testing and cancel orders for Nvidia's RTX Pro 6000D.
The trajectory of Nvidia's H200 chip illustrates the gap between approval signals and actual delivery. In January, Beijing told Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance to prepare H200 orders, with purchasing plans required to include some domestic chips. Washington subsequently granted seven Chinese firms—including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com—licenses to purchase up to 75,000 H200 chips each. As of May, no H200 chips had been delivered to any of these licensees.
Note: This report remains unconfirmed and has not been independently verified.
