NYT finds approved Nvidia H200 buyer in China has empty office
For the sanctions compliance head at a trade-finance bank
The New York Times found that New Matrix, a Chinese firm on the list approved to handle Nvidia's H200 AI chips, has an empty office at its listed address, The Verge reported on Nov. 7.1
The sources do not say why the Commerce Department cleared New Matrix or how it vets buyers; The Verge reported that concerns are being raised that neither Commerce nor Nvidia is doing due diligence.1 The Verge reported that Nvidia had been restricted from selling chips to China during the Biden presidency, and that the Trump administration relaxed those limits after Nvidia agreed to give the government a 15-percent cut of all sales.1
According to the Times as quoted by The Verge, the office is "a hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be."1
The Times found only scant information online about New Matrix, which was created 17 months ago.1
The company directory at the building New Matrix lists as its address does not include the firm, and a receptionist and a manager at the nearby industrial park property management agency said they had no record of it.1
The Times reported that New Matrix's owners have ties to a Chinese private equity firm blacklisted by the US government since 2024, and that approvals of buyers linked to entities under national-security-related trade restrictions are a pattern, not a rare lapse.1
Banks and fintechs financing, insuring or processing payments for AI hardware deals cannot treat a government approval as proof of who owns or operates a buyer. Counterparty ownership checks and sanctions screening still fall to the institution.
Our take. Commerce approved New Matrix to handle Nvidia H200 chips; the Times found an empty shell, wires dangling where lights should be, and owners tied to a firm blacklisted since 2024. The license is not your end-user check.
Action. Trade finance compliance: Require independent end-user and ownership checks on AI-chip trades even with a Commerce license; screen owners for ties to blacklisted firms.
What our records say
NVIDIA sells GPUs and AI systems plus a licensed software stack that banks run in their own data centres or rent in the cloud, with uses spanning fraud scoring, agent assistants and in-house models.1 Named banks: BNY said in March 2024 it was the first major bank to deploy an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with DGX H100 systems, used for deposit forecasting, payment automation, predictive trade analytics and end-of-day cash balances.2
From our records
- NVIDIAvendor · banks using it (6) BNY, Amex, Capital One · alternatives SambaNova
- Commerce Bancsharesbank · latest Nolan & Associates acquisition completed (Oct 2026)