WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - Nvidia has shipped a small number of its H200 artificial intelligence chip to China so far, a senior U.S. official told Congress on Tuesday. The chip is Nvidia's second most powerful.

Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "H200 chips have only been exported to China in very small quantities to date." He added that shipments of the chips had begun, but were "very few."

Reuters reported on Tuesday that a unit of telecommunications equipment maker ZTE Corp. and two other Chinese firms are among the latest entities to receive U.S. approval to purchase advanced artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Reuters reported in May that the U.S. Commerce Department had approved the purchase of H200 chips by about 10 Chinese companies, but no shipments have been delivered since then.

Sources at the time indicated that Alibaba, Tencent Holdings and ByteDance were among the companies that received approval.

Kessler said the Commerce Department submitted a confidential list of requests for H200 chips to Congress without providing further details.

Nvidia's chip sales to China have become a point of contention in the broader technological rivalry between the United States and China. Washington seeks to limit Beijing's access to advanced chips that could be used in military applications.