Reuters reported, in a story The Hindu carried on 12 November, that Northwestern Polytechnical University bought two Nvidia H200 AI chips last month. The Chinese school has close military ties and is on a US export blacklist called the Entity List. Its website shows an October 21 procurement record: 874,700 yuan, about $123,000, paid to Shaanxi Bosuan Network Technology rather than Nvidia. Reuters also said the university rented access to H200 and other Nvidia chips through five contracts this year, including two January contracts for servers with eight H200 chips each.
Nvidia, the university and the US Commerce Department's export office did not reply to Reuters. The records say little about where the chips came from or where the rented servers ran. The January US rules for H200 exports to China require safeguards against remote access by blacklisted entities to chips exported under that policy. Reuters does not say whether they covered these chips.
In our view, the purchase shows a reseller can move hardware to a blacklisted buyer. Renting means paying for access, not owning the chips; one record Reuters cites priced H800 access at 10 yuan per chip-hour. Renters connect remotely, so where a chip sits does not show who uses it. A provider could add an end-use clause and a customer check to its contracts.