Why Is Nvidia Stock Higher Premarket? China Approves AI Chip Sales

NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA) is trading higher in premarket on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, after a major regulatory breakthrough in one of the world’s most important technology markets. According to Reuters, Nvidia has won Beijing’s approval to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips in China, its second-most powerful AI chip, clearing a long-standing barrier that had blocked sales to a market that once represented a significant portion of the company’s revenue.

Simultaneously, Nvidia is preparing a version of the Groq AI chip that can be sold to the Chinese market, further signaling the company’s renewed push into the region. The news marks a pivotal shift for the chip giant, which had previously halted H200 production and excluded China revenue from its earnings forecasts amid prolonged regulatory uncertainty on both sides of the Pacific.

How China Approval Reshapes Nvidia’s Global AI Expansion

After months of regulatory back-and-forth, Nvidia has secured approvals from both the U.S. and Chinese governments to resume sales of its H200 AI chips to China. CEO Jensen Huang confirmed on March 17 that the company has been licensed for many customers in China and has already received purchase orders from multiple firms, prompting a restart of H200 production.

Huang told reporters plainly that the supply chain is now ramping back up, a stark contrast to the company’s posture just weeks earlier, when it reported almost no progress in the region. The clearance is significant because China once accounted for at least 20% of Nvidia’s data center revenue, a business that was severely disrupted by export controls and forced the company to take a $5.5 billion charge.

The H200 had been a flashpoint in U.S.-China trade relations, with Beijing’s hesitation to allow imports serving as the primary bottleneck even after the U.S. had granted some export licenses. A source familiar with the matter confirmed that Nvidia has now received licenses for many China-based customers from Beijing, unblocking what had been a near-total freeze on shipments.

In January, Reuters had reported that China granted preliminary approval to ByteDance, Tencent, Alibaba, and AI startup DeepSeek to import the chips, though the final regulatory conditions were still being worked out at the time.

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Groq Chip Variant and NVDA Stock Outlook

Beyond the H200 development, Nvidia is also working on a version of the Groq AI chip specifically adapted for the Chinese market, according to sources cited by Reuters. The Groq chip is planned for inference workloads, the stage of AI where systems respond to queries, generate content, or complete tasks, and is expected to become available in May.

In the product lineup Nvidia showcased this week, the company intends to pair its upcoming Vera Rubin chips, which are restricted from sale in China, with the Groq chips for customers in the region. Notably, the chips being prepared for China are not downgraded or purpose-built for the market; rather, one source indicated the variant has been adapted to integrate with other systems.

This is a strategically important move, as Nvidia faces considerably more competition in the inference segment compared to AI training, with major Chinese firms including Baidu already producing their own inference chips.

As for NVDA stock, shares closed at $181.93 on March 17, down 0.69%, but were trading higher in premarket at $183.95, up $2.02 or 1.11%. The stock carries a consensus Strong Buy rating from 40 Wall Street analysts, 39 Buy and one Hold, with an average price target of $274.46, implying over 50% upside from current levels. Key financial metrics remain robust: a market cap of $4.42 trillion, trailing revenue of $215.94 billion, a profit margin of 55.60%, and Q4 FY26 revenue of $68.13 billion with earnings of $39.55 billion.

Disclaimer: The author does not hold or have a position in any securities discussed in the article. All stock prices were quoted at the time of writing.