The New Matrix Case and the List of Authorized Companies
The U.S. government is approving the sale of Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips to Chinese companies that, according to The Verge citing The New York Times, are linked to entities on U.S. blacklists. The case at the center of the criticism is New Matrix, a company on the list of firms authorized to deal in the processors. According to the newspaper, its offices are empty: the premises are described as a gray, hollow shell, with wires hanging from the ceiling in place of light fixtures.
No substantial trace of the company's activity was found in journalistic checks. New Matrix appears to have been established 17 months ago, and the information available online is scarce. In the building listed as its headquarters, the business directory does not mention it; at the nearby property management office of the industrial park, both a receptionist and a manager said they had no record of the company. According to the Times, these elements cast doubt on the actual operations of the approved entity.
Corporate Ties and the Precedent of Restrictions
New Matrix's profile raises a further concern: its owners have ties to a Chinese private equity firm that has been subject to U.S. restrictive measures since 2024. According to The New York Times, this is not an isolated oversight but a recurring pattern: companies connected to entities subject to national-security-related trade restrictions are being authorized to buy Nvidia chips.
The regulatory context has changed over time. During the Biden presidency, Nvidia was restricted in its sale of processors to China; the Trump administration then relaxed those constraints after the company agreed to pay the government a 15 percent share of all sales. Meanwhile, according to the material, CEO Jensen Huang launched an intensive lobbying campaign and was apparently the target of an alleged espionage plot attributed to China's Ministry of State Security.
What remains to be verified
The news raises questions on two fronts: the Commerce Department's ability to verify the identity and soundness of the companies placed on the authorization lists, and Nvidia's role in selecting its Chinese customers. The text does not report official reactions from the government, the company, or Chinese authorities, nor does it indicate whether investigations or reviews of the authorizations have been launched. The actual scale of the phenomenon, the number of similar cases, and the regulatory consequences therefore remain to be established: the available elements document a single episode and a statement about a trend attributed to the U.S. newspaper.
