Nvidia takes $1.27 billion charge on unsold H200 chips as China sales stall

Aug 27, 2026

Nvidia had a blowout quarter overall, but its China business is a bust — Beijing's pushback left it stuck with AI chips it can't sell.

  • H200 chips sold to Chinese customers brought in less than 1% of Nvidia's data center revenue last quarter.
  • Beijing discouraged buyers, so Nvidia couldn't ship anywhere near the volume Washington had approved in January.
  • Weak demand forced Nvidia to write down excess H200 inventory, a $400 million hit over the past six months.
  • Total China sales still doubled from a year ago, but that came from gaming hardware and other non-AI products, not AI chips.
  • Everything else was strong: revenue jumped over 100% from last year and beat expectations, driven by Amazon and Google buying for their data centers.

Outlook: Nvidia is forecasting zero AI chip revenue from China next quarter, treating the market as closed while US export limits and Beijing's resistance both hold.

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