Two Chinese companies cleared to purchase banned Nvidia H200 AI chips operate from empty offices with unknown addresses, according to an investigation by The New York Times. The firms, identified as New Matrix and Maginfra, were approved to buy the hardware for the purpose of assembling AI servers for unspecified final users. Building receptionists reported being unfamiliar with the companies, and investigators found the office spaces to be deserted shells containing only some furniture.
New Matrix was founded by Li Bin, who is connected to Wise Road, a Chinese private equity firm sanctioned by the United States for assisting Beijing in acquiring sensitive chip technologies. Li also chairs Tsinghua Unigroup and owns New H3C Semiconductor Technologies, a company on the Commerce Department’s Entity List for cooperating with the Chinese military. Maginfra is suspected of having links to Inspur, a company blacklisted by Washington in 2023 for supporting the People’s Liberation Army through shared personnel and patents.
Other approved entities include Zhejiang Yindun Cloud Technology, whose executives are reportedly related to the founder of Range Intelligent Computing Technology Group, a data center operator that has sold compute capacity to Chinese military contractors. While major entities like Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent have also received licenses, the approval of these smaller, non-descript firms has raised questions regarding the oversight of export controls.
“I have a ton of concerns that neither the Commerce Department or Nvidia is doing the due diligence needed to ensure that the licensing terms are being followed,” former China director for the White House National Security Council Liza Tobin told The New York Times.
The licensing follows a period of regulatory volatility. President Donald Trump banned the export of Nvidia AI GPUs in April 2025, including customized models, but reversed the decision late last year in exchange for a 25% cut of the sales. Following the lifting of import bans by Beijing, approximately two dozen firms have received approval to import the chips.
