China Signals Approval for Alibaba, ByteDance to Purchase Nvidia Professional GPU Chips

China's government has signaled it will allow domestic AI firms including Alibaba and ByteDance to purchase Nvidia's RTX PRO 5500, a high-end professional graphics processor designed for workstations rather than data centers. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently asked several companies to report their plans to acquire the chip and indicated approval was forthcoming, according to industry officials familiar with the matter. The move represents a potential breakthrough in China's efforts to secure critical AI computing capacity amid persistent semiconductor shortages.