The US government has recently given Nvidia approval to export its H200 AI chips to approved customers in China for a 25% levy. This move reverses previous restrictions on advanced chips and ignores strong opposition to the move on national security grounds.
In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump said the US would allow the sale of the chips to China and other countries under conditions which allow for “continued strong national security”.
President Trump added Chinese President Xi Jinping responded positively to the move.
The policy does not include Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell and Rubin chips, but also covers AMD, Intel and other US chipmakers.
It requires checks by the Department of Commerce to ensure national security.
The move could keep China-based companies more reliant on US technology standards instead of using domestic AI chips from vendors including Huawei.
Opening sales of its more advanced chip creates huge upside for Nvidia, which excluded sales of its H20 chips to China in recent financial outlooks.
The H200 chip offers significantly more memory bandwidth than the H20, enabling faster data processing for AI applications. However, it is less capable than Nvidia’s flagship Blackwell chips.
Nvidia reconfigured the H200 for China following US export controls on AI chips introduced in October 2023 during President Joe Biden’s term.
The decision by President Trump is similar to deals Nvidia and AMD reached with the US government in August to restart sales of H20 chips to China.
In September, a regulator in China reportedly ordered domestic technology companies to stop buying Nvidia AI chips to support local alternatives.
Reuters reported the prospective compromise follows a recent truce in the US-China trade and tech war, brokered by President Trump and President Xi.
The news agency also reported US senator Elizabeth Warren opposes selling the H200 chips to China.
On 3 December, Warner criticised Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for lobbying President Trump to approve the sale of advanced AI chips to China. “This risks turbocharging China’s bid for technological and military dominance and undermining US economic and national security,” Reuters reported the senator as saying.
Source: Mobile World Live
Image Credit: Nvidia