Trump Admin Cleared AI Chip Sales To Chinese Companies With Empty Offices: REPORT
Sean Moran · Nov 9, 2026 · 4 min read
The Trump administration approved the sale of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips to dozens of Chinese companies, many of whose offices were found to be empty, while others had connections to firms sanctioned for national security risks, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The Commerce Department approved a Chinese firm to use Nvidia’s advanced AI chips despite little evidence that the firm exists, according to the NYT. Several Chinese firms cleared to buy these chips have close ties to blacklisted companies, raising questions about the government’s oversight of its export control policies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), a sub-agency of the Commerce Department, granted New Matrix approval to sell Nvidia chips despite little online information about the firm and the firm does not occupy the building listed as its address, per the Times. Chinese corporate records reportedly link the firm to Wise Road, a Chinese private equity firm that the U.S. government blacklisted two years ago; analysts suggest New Matrix may be a front for firms associated with the Chinese fund, per the Code of Federal Regulations.
Wise Road has reportedly aided the Chinese government’s mission to acquire strategically important companies with chip technology.
Li Bin, the founder of Wise Road, also chairs Tsinghua Unigroup, a technology group with government ownership, the Times reported. The U.S. government added one of Wise Road’s subsidiaries, New H3C Semiconductor Technologies, to the entity list for supplying the Chinese military, per the regulations.
Corporate records show that many other Chinese firms approved to purchase Nvidia chips are connected to firms blacklisted by the United States or work as military contractors in China, per the Times.
The BIS reviews all applications for national security risks and has imposed over $300 million in penalties on companies for export violations in 2025, hiring more than 90 officers to enforce its rules, a BIS spokesman told the Times.
The BIS did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation comment request.
An Nvidia spokesperson pointed the DCNF to Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo, who said that “it makes no sense for the Chinese military to depend on American technology” and that Nvidia sells the “first, best and most of our technology in America.”