China may greenlight ByteDance and Alibaba purchase of Nvidia RTX PRO 5500 chips

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has requested that companies including ByteDance and Alibaba submit proposals for purchasing Nvidia’s RTX PRO 5500 professional GPUs. Sources say the ministry intends to permit these acquisitions, a step that industry insiders think may allow the firms to sidestep U.S. export controls on high-end computing hardware. Nvidia’s spokesperson noted that U.S. regulations, some dating back five years, continue to limit sales of certain gaming-related products to China.

Neither ByteDance nor Alibaba have commented on the report, and Chinese officials were not immediately reachable for verification. The potential approval could significantly affect China’s access to advanced AI-capable chips.