In a new post on Truth Social, Donald Trump announced that he would allow Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to China. This move continues to prevent the company from selling its much more advanced Blackwell series chips. However, considering the older H20 model was sidelined by the Chinese government for being “not powerful enough,” this decision is seen as a major commercial victory for the tech giant. Trump stated that these sales would be made under the conditions of “continuous and strong National Security” and announced that Nvidia would pay 25% of the revenue from sales to China to the US government.
US government to take 25% of Nvidia’s China sales
Reports emerged this summer that Nvidia and AMD had agreed to give the US government 15% of the revenue from chip sales to China. Experts noted at the time that no private company had entered into such a revenue-sharing agreement with the government, and that its legality was questionable. Trump described the sale of H200 chips as a win for American workers, emphasizing that the decision must be officially approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees export controls. However, it seems unlikely that federal agencies under the current administration will question the president’s decisions.
President Trump argued that this policy would support American jobs and strengthen domestic manufacturing. He also claimed that the Joe Biden administration was forcing U.S. companies to produce “low-quality” products that no one wanted, and that this era is over. According to Bloomberg data, the Chinese government had encouraged potential customers to reject the less powerful H20 chips. While this wasn’t a complete ban, the lack of interest in these products from the world’s second-largest chip market appears to have prompted the U.S. administration to reconsider the issue.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, like other tech leaders, is known to have cultivated close ties with Trump, and Nvidia’s lobbying efforts appear to be paying off. According to the New York Times, AI chief David Sacks also disputed security concerns about chip sales to China, arguing that selling advanced chips would make China more dependent on US technology. Trump stated that the Commerce Department has finalized the details and that the same approach would apply to AMD, Intel, and other major American companies. Trump is expected to visit Beijing in April and meet with Xi Jinping.
What are your thoughts on this technology war between the US and China and the new decisions made in the chip crisis?
