Chinese scrutiny of Nvidia deepened after Yuyuan Tantian, a social-media account linked to state broadcaster CCTV, and the People’s Daily warned that the U.S. company’s H20 artificial-intelligence chips are “neither advanced nor safe.” The commentaries, published on 10 Aug, alleged the processors contain hardware “backdoors” that could enable remote shutdown and urged Chinese buyers to consider alternatives. The criticism followed a 31 July meeting in which China’s cyberspace watchdog summoned Nvidia to explain potential security risks. Nvidia has repeatedly denied the allegation, most recently in a bilingual blog post claiming its products have “no back doors, kill switches or spyware.” On 12 Aug Bloomberg and other outlets reported that Chinese ministries have begun circulating written guidance instructing state-owned enterprises and private firms to avoid the H20—particularly in government or national-security projects—and to justify any purchases that do occur. The notices also caution against Advanced Micro Devices’ MI308 accelerators, according to people familiar with the matter. The H20 was designed for China after Washington barred exports of Nvidia’s flagship H100 GPU in 2023. U.S. President Donald Trump banned H20 sales in April this year, then reversed course in July and struck a deal entitling the U.S. government to 15% of revenue from approved chip shipments. Analysts estimated the earlier ban threatened a $5.5 billion inventory writedown and up to $15 billion in revenue; Beijing’s latest pushback now clouds Nvidia’s efforts to regain those sales and advances China’s drive to rely on domestic semiconductors.