New York, Jan 7, 2026, 14:00 EST — Regular session
Nvidia shares rose on Wednesday after The Information reported that Beijing had told some Chinese tech firms to halt orders for Nvidia’s H200 chips this week while it considers the terms for letting local companies buy the processors. The report said China was expected to steer buyers toward domestic AI chips and noted the Trump administration approved H200 exports late last year on condition Nvidia shares 25% of the revenue with the U.S. government; the Chinese embassy in Washington said China was willing to “maintain dialogue and cooperation” to safeguard supply chains. Shares were up about 1.2% at $189.52 in afternoon trade. Reuters
The China question has become a near-term swing factor for Nvidia, a bellwether AI stock that investors have used as shorthand for data-center spending. CFO Colette Kress said the U.S. government was “working feverishly” on export-license applications, while CEO Jensen Huang said any Chinese approval would show up in “purchase orders,” not a formal announcement. Nvidia has said it is aiming for $500 billion in sales from its current Blackwell generation and the next Vera Rubin chips by the end of this year. Reuters
Nvidia is also trying to keep momentum on the product cycle. At CES in Las Vegas, Huang said the next “Vera Rubin” platform is in “full production” and can deliver five times the AI computing of its prior chips when serving chatbots and other apps. He said the design targets lower costs for producing “tokens” — the pieces of text an AI model generates — and leans into “inference,” the step where models produce answers, where Nvidia faces stiffer competition from Advanced Micro Devices and from customers such as Alphabet’s Google, which designs its own chips. Reuters
The headline landed into a market still leaning on big tech. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were higher on Wednesday even as job openings fell more than expected and private payroll growth came in softer than forecasts. “Should I have been chasing the market or should I take some profit,” said Robert Pavlik, senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth, with traders looking to Friday’s U.S. nonfarm payrolls report. Reuters
For Nvidia, the push-and-pull is familiar: demand can be there, the supply chain can be ready, and policy can still freeze the flow. In the background, competitors keep shipping and customers keep building alternatives, slowly.
But the picture can still turn. A deeper domestic-buy push in China would squeeze imported accelerators, and any new U.S. tightening on what can be licensed would hit volumes and mix. Even without new rules, delays alone can shift orders and timing — and timing is what traders have been playing.
Next, the market will look for tangible signs on licensing and ordering rather than speeches and reports. Nvidia is due to report fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 results on Feb. 25, according to its investor calendar.
