Catenaa, Tuesday, January 13, 2026- Nvidia does not require an upfront payment for H200 chips, as tensions between Beijing and Washington over AI tech seem to be calming.
Aspokesperson for the US chipmaker said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday that it “would never require customers to pay for products they do not receive”.
This statement was in response to earlier reports about the company having imposed unusually stringent terms requiring full upfront payment from Chinese customers seeking its artificial intelligence chips.
One source told Reuters that Nvidia’s standard terms for Chinese clients have previously included advance payment requirements, but they were sometimes allowed to place a deposit rather than make a full payment up front.
But for the H200, the company has been particularly strict in enforcing conditions given the lack of clarity on whether Chinese regulators would greenlight the shipments, the person added.
Such a payment structure for the H200 would effectively transfer financial risk from Nvidia to its customers, who must commit capital without certainty that Beijing will approve the chip imports or that they will be able to deploy the technology as planned.
Also, other tech companies are catching up on Nvidia’s AI superiority, as Google on Monday became the fourth company to join the $4 trillion market cap club, riding a wave of investor excitement related to its latest AI advancements.
It’s now the second-most-valuable company after Nvidia.
The search giant joins Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia on the short list of names that have crossed the threshold, though Microsoft has since pulled back below the market milestone.
Nvidia topped $5 trillion in October but has since fallen back into the $4 trillion range.
