China May Let Alibaba and ByteDance Buy Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500. A New Door, Not a Full Reopening

China's industry ministry (MIIT) has asked Alibaba and ByteDance how many RTX Pro 5500 chips they plan to buy and what they'd use them for. Officials have signalled that approval is likely, but nothing is signed yet.

Why it matters

The chip: The RTX Pro 5500 is a Blackwell workstation GPU with 84GB of memory. It isn't in the data-center class that US export controls target, which gives it more room to be sold.

Nvidia's China collapse: Jensen Huang says Nvidia's share of China's AI chip market went from about 95% to effectively zero. H200 sales there are under 1% of data-center revenue.

Upside only: Nvidia's forecasts include no China sales, so any volume here is extra.

Order size: ByteDance is reportedly weighing around 1 million units.

What's missing

Not a training chip: It lacks the high-speed networking and memory needed for large-scale AI training. It's built for inference.

Two approvals needed: Beijing has to sign off, and Washington's rules have to let Nvidia ship.

Summit silence: Chip controls were reportedly absent from both governments' readouts of the Trump–Xi summit.

My sell-put approach

Headlines: I don't sell puts into a gap on news. I let the first trading session settle.

Gates: Each stock must be above its 200-day average, with IV Rank at least 40, IV Percentile at least 45, and implied volatility at least 1.2 times historical.

Calendar: Nvidia reports in late November and Alibaba around mid-November. My 30 to 45 day expiries have to clear the 7-day earnings blackout.

Strike: Assuming NVDA at $230 and 35% IV over 35 days, the one standard deviation floor is about $205. A $205 put needs $20,500 in cash.

Correlation: NVDA and BABA now share one China headline, so I count them as one trade.

It's good news for both. I still don't chase it; the rules pick the entry.

Educational only, not investment advice.

$NVDA $BABA