The US Commerce Department has granted licenses for roughly two dozen Chinese companies to acquire or process Nvidia's H200 artificial intelligence chips. However, a recent investigation by The New York Times revealed that at least two of these approved entities, New Matrix and Maginfra, maintain addresses in Beijing that appear to be vacant or largely unoccupied.New Matrix, a Beijing-based company established 17 months ago, was approved to assemble Nvidia's H200 chips into AI servers. The New York Times reported that its listed address in an industrial park on Beijing's northwest edge was an empty building, described as a "hollow gray shell with wires dangling from the ceiling where lights should be." The company did not appear in the building directory, and property management staff at the industrial park stated they had no record of New Matrix as a tenant. Chinese corporate filings reportedly link New Matrix's owners to Wise Road Capital, a private equity fund that the US Commerce Department added to its entity list in 2024 for allegedly assisting Beijing in acquiring sensitive semiconductor companies. Analysts cited by the Times suggested New Matrix could be a front for Wise Road-linked companies. New Matrix did not respond to requests for comment.A second approved firm, Maginfra, also had a deserted office when Times reporters visited in September. Analysts believe Maginfra is connected to Inspur, a major Chinese server manufacturer that is on the US entity list due to its work with the Chinese military. These connections reportedly include shared staff and patents.The Trump administration authorized the sale of H200 processors to China in December 2025, adjusting earlier restrictions aimed at preventing Beijing from obtaining advanced technology that could bolster its military capabilities. Under this arrangement, chips manufactured in Taiwan must first pass through the United States, allowing Washington to collect a 25% tariff on their value. The Commerce Department then moved to case-by-case reviews of Nvidia's chip exports beginning in mid-January 2026.Liza Tobin, who served as China director on the White House National Security Council during both the first Trump and Biden administrations, expressed concerns about the due diligence conducted by US authorities and Nvidia. A spokesman for the Bureau of Industry and Security stated that the office carefully reviews every application for national security risks. Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo countered that it "makes no sense for the Chinese military to depend on American technology."Commercially, H200 shipments to China represented less than 1% of Nvidia's data center revenue in the quarter ending July. However, the policy implications are significant, as these licenses serve as an initial test of the compromise to police the revenue-sharing arrangement. The approved list of Chinese firms also includes entities such as Baidu, BYD, and Tesla Shanghai.