Nvidia Says U.S. Has Lifted Restrictions on A.I. Chip Sales to China

The Silicon Valley chip giant said the Trump administration, which had shut down its sales to China three months ago, had assured it that licenses for the sales would now be granted.

US Nvidia’s AI Chip Sales to China Resume Amid Strategic Reversal

U.S. Reverses Export Ban

· The Trump administration has lifted restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 AI chip sales to China.

· Nvidia confirmed it will resume shipments, pending license approvals, which the U.S. government has assured will be granted.

Behind the Decision

· The reversal follows CEO Jensen Huang’s meeting with President Trump and months of lobbying.

· Huang emphasized China’s importance, noting it hosts 50% of the world’s AI developers and is the largest chip market globally.

Business Implications

· Nvidia expects up to $15 billion in revenue from H20 chip sales this fiscal year.

· AMD also received approval to resume sales of its MI308 AI chip to China.

· Nvidia’s stock surged following the announcement.

Strategic Concerns & Pushback

· The original ban aimed to prevent Chinese military use of advanced AI chips.

· Critics in Congress warn the reversal could undermine U.S. national security and aid Chinese tech firms like DeepSeek and Huawei.

· An investigation is underway into Nvidia’s prior chip sales in Asia.

Diplomatic & Tech Dynamics

· The H20 chip is a throttled version of Nvidia’s H100, designed to comply with export controls.

· Huang advocates for a global standard built on the “American tech stack”, likening it to the U.S. dollar’s dominance.

· He views China as a “competitor and adversary, not our enemy,” promoting cooperation over confrontation.

[ABS News Service/16.07.2025]

Three months after shutting down Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chip sales to China, the Trump administration has reversed course.

On Monday, the Silicon Valley company said in a blog post that the U.S. government had approved sales of a China-specific A.I. chip known as the H20. Nvidia will still need licensing approval from the U.S. government to fulfill those orders, but the Trump administration “has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted,” the company said.

The decision came after Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, met last Thursday with President Trump. Mr. Huang has spent months lobbying politicians across Washington to keep China open for A.I. chip sales. China has the potential to deliver billions of dollars in sales for the world’s most valuable public company, which last week became the first to reach a $4 trillion valuation.

Mr. Huang has also visited China several times this year, including a trip to Beijing this week where he is scheduled to give a news conference on Wednesday. He told reporters in China on Tuesday that Nvidia would also begin selling a chip for China called the RTX PRO GPU that is based on its latest Blackwell technology.

Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, said on Tuesday that it had also received government approval to restart sales of its A.I. chip for China, the MI308. Shares of Nvidia and AMD rose more than 4 percent in morning trading.

The Commerce Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The reversal has major implications for the race between the United States and China to develop artificial intelligence. It will allow Chinese tech companies to restart purchases of Nvidia’s chips, which are regarded as ideal for running some of the calculations that power A.I. Nvidia was slated to collect as much as $15 billion from sales of the H20 chip during its current fiscal year.

With the change, the Trump administration has also backed away from a signature effort to stay ahead of China in the A.I. race. The U.S. government had been concerned that the Chinese military could use A.I. chips to coordinate attacks and develop weapons and had also wanted to preserve the U.S. lead in developing A.I. systems.

In January, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Congress during his nomination hearing that he thought Nvidia and other companies “need to stop helping” China and stop allowing it to use “our tools to compete with us.”

Mr. Lutnick reiterated those sentiments last month. “They are trying to copy our technology and in the race for A.I. supremacy, they are behind us, but they are working with a central government out to get us,” he said of Chinese companies during testimony before a House subcommittee about his department’s budget.

The Trump administration’s previous restrictions on A.I. chip sales had posed a threat to Nvidia. Mr. Huang considers selling chips to China vital to Nvidia’s future because the country is home to 50 percent of the world’s A.I. developers. China also spends more on chips than any other market in the world. He has said that he fears that exiting the market would allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to increase its sales and eventually compete against Nvidia overseas.

Mr. Huang pressed the administration to roll back its restrictions on shipments of A.I. chips to China, arguing that closing off the China market will only hurt U.S. tech companies. He has also urged the administration to get countries around the world to build on chips and software made by U.S. companies.

“The American tech stack should be the global standard, just as the American dollar is the standard by which every country builds on,” Mr. Huang said during a podcast recorded last week in Washington with the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank.

Mr. Huang has a more optimistic view of U.S.-China relations than many in Washington. During the podcast, he said that China is a “competitor and adversary, not our enemy.”

Mr. Lutnick reiterated those sentiments last month. “They are trying to copy our technology and in the race for A.I. supremacy, they are behind us, but they are working with a central government out to get us,” he said of Chinese companies during testimony before a House subcommittee about his department’s budget.

The Trump administration’s previous restrictions on A.I. chip sales had posed a threat to Nvidia. Mr. Huang considers selling chips to China vital to Nvidia’s future because the country is home to 50 percent of the world’s A.I. developers. China also spends more on chips than any other market in the world. He has said that he fears that exiting the market would allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to increase its sales and eventually compete against Nvidia overseas.

Mr. Huang pressed the administration to roll back its restrictions on shipments of A.I. chips to China, arguing that closing off the China market will only hurt U.S. tech companies. He has also urged the administration to get countries around the world to build on chips and software made by U.S. companies.

“The American tech stack should be the global standard, just as the American dollar is the standard by which every country builds on,” Mr. Huang said during a podcast recorded last week in Washington with the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank.

Mr. Huang has a more optimistic view of U.S.-China relations than many in Washington. During the podcast, he said that China is a “competitor and adversary, not our enemy.”

Some members of the Trump administration have gradually come around to share Mr. Huang’s perspective, including David Sacks, the White House’s A.I. and crypto czar.

The H20 is not Nvidia’s most powerful chip. To comply with U.S. restrictions on sales to China, the company throttled the performance of a more powerful semiconductor, the H100, and began marketing it in China as the H20. But the H20 has significant memory capabilities that are valuable for the process of running A.I., which is known as “inference.”

The Trump administration’s reversal could face pushback on Capitol Hill. In April, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party opened an investigation into Nvidia’s chip sales across Asia. The committee was trying to assess whether the chip maker knowingly provided DeepSeek with critical technology, potentially in violation of U.S. rules.