Nvidia shares gained ground after Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities have granted in-principle approval for major domestic technology firms—including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance—to prepare orders for the company’s H200 artificial intelligence accelerators. This move marks a significant shift in Beijing’s stance, potentially unlocking demand for roughly 1.5 million units and representing nearly $30 billion in incremental revenue. Approval terms reportedly include purchase commitments for domestic alternatives, but no formal quotas have been disclosed.

Following the news, open interest in Nvidia options surged, with approximately 821 000 calls and 481 000 puts changing hands on the same trading day, indicating aggressive positioning ahead of formal import licenses. Short-term implied volatility remains elevated at around 37%, reflecting continued uncertainty around timing and scale of Chinese chip purchases. Meanwhile, mainland and Hong Kong-listed semiconductor ETFs saw record inflows, suggesting investors are front-running broader sector rotation into AI hardware plays.

The anticipated Chinese orders could reinforce Nvidia’s leadership in the AI accelerator market by diversifying its customer base beyond U.S. hyperscalers and reducing geopolitical supply-chain risks. Analysts note that even a partial fill of these orders would bolster data center revenue growth by several percentage points in fiscal 2026. Despite premium forward multiples, consensus estimates for Nvidia’s annual revenue growth exceed 40% over the next two years, underpinned by strong backlog and expanding design wins with cloud providers.