U.S. APPROVED NVIDIA CHIPS FOR A GHOST COMPANY WITH AN EMPTY OFFICE

A New York Times investigation found the Commerce Department approved roughly two dozen Chinese firms to buy or handle Nvidia's H200 AI chips — and two of the names on the list lead to empty offices. Reporters visiting the Beijing address of New Matrix, a company created just 17 months ago, found a hollow concrete shell with wires dangling where lights should be, no listing in the building directory, and property managers with no record of the firm.

The owners are the problem, not just the address: Chinese corporate records tie New Matrix's owners to Wise Road, a private equity fund the U.S. blacklisted in 2024 for helping Beijing acquire sensitive chip technology, and its founder Li Bin chairs state-backed Tsinghua Unigroup. A second approved firm, Maginfra, had a deserted office of its own and is suspected of fronting for Inspur, blacklisted since 2023 for supplying China's military.

Neither firm was cleared as an end user — both were approved to assemble H200s into AI servers for customers nobody has named, and the reporting does not show a single chip reaching either one. But the Times calls it a pattern, not a lapse, and a former White House China director told the paper she doubts Commerce or Nvidia is doing the due diligence the licenses require. Huang faces House chairmen behind closed doors on November 18.