New York, January 8, 2026, 06:41 (EST) — Premarket
Nvidia shares rose about 1% to $189.11 in premarket trade on Thursday after sources said the chipmaker is demanding full upfront payment from Chinese buyers of its H200 artificial-intelligence chips. The terms leave customers no option to cancel or ask for refunds once an order is placed, the people said.
The tighter stance matters because China demand is a swing factor for AI stocks that have powered the rally, and policy risk is now showing up in contracts, not just headlines. Beijing has asked some Chinese tech firms to halt H200 orders while it weighs whether to mandate purchases of domestic AI chips alongside imports, the Information reported.
At CES in Las Vegas this week, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia would see China’s approval through orders: “It’s just going to be purchase orders.” CFO Colette Kress told a JPMorgan analyst the U.S. government is “working feverishly” on export licenses, but Nvidia still does not know when approvals will land. Reuters
Huang’s CES remarks have already spilled into the plumbing around AI. He said Nvidia’s next “Vera Rubin” chips are in “full production” and argued that “no water chillers are necessary for data centres,” knocking shares of cooling-equipment makers on Tuesday. Barclays analysts led by Julian Mitchell called the claim dramatic, but said Nvidia’s central role in the AI stack makes it hard to shrug off. Reuters
AI chip peers were mostly lower before the open. AMD fell about 2%, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s U.S. shares slid about 2.6%, and Micron Technology dropped about 1.1%.
Overseas, Samsung Electronics projected a record quarterly profit as tight supply and AI-driven demand pushed up prices for conventional memory chips. “The world is going to need more fabs,” Huang told reporters, calling the new wave of data centers “AI factories.” Samsung is due to release full results on Jan. 29. Reuters
The AI complex has helped carry U.S. stocks in the first week of the year, but valuations are still heavy as earnings season nears. “We’re going to have a very strong earnings season for Big Tech,” said Jed Ellerbroek, a portfolio manager at Argent Capital, pointing to the next round of capex — spending on data centers and gear. Reuters
But the China trade can turn quickly. A delay in export licenses, tougher conditions in Beijing, or a pause in cloud spending would hit the highest-multiple AI names first.
