China's government asked ByteDance and Alibaba to submit wish lists for Nvidia's RTX PRO 5500 chips. The same government that banned these chips is now polling companies on whether they'd like to buy them. This is like your ex texting at 2am asking if you still think about her.
The RTX PRO 5500 exists in regulatory limbo. America says China can't have the good chips. China says it doesn't need American chips. Nvidia makes a special worse chip that technically complies with export controls. Everyone pretends this is normal international commerce and not three countries playing the worst game of telephone ever invented.
ByteDance runs TikTok, which means they need chips to recommend you increasingly unhinged videos about garage door springs. Alibaba needs chips to process transactions for counterfeit Nike shoes. Both companies are now filing paperwork explaining why they need American semiconductors that America specifically designed to be bad enough that China wouldn't want them.
The Information reports this like it's news. Officials asked companies to report their plans. Not approve them. Not deny them. Report them. The bureaucratic equivalent of your manager asking you to document your workload right before layoffs.
Retail traders saw "Nvidia" in the headline and bought calls without reading past the first three words. They now own options on a company whose customer may or may not be allowed to buy a product that was specifically engineered to be just sh*tty enough to satisfy export restrictions. The American dream, if that dream involved Chinese regulatory approval and purposely nerfed graphics cards.
This is what peak geopolitical efficiency looks like: three governments, two companies, one mediocre chip, and zero clarity on who can buy what from whom.
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