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WASHINGTON—The Trump administration plans to let Nvidia export its H200 chip to China, the latest twist in the artificial-intelligence chip designer’s efforts to maintain access to the world’s second-largest economy, according to people familiar with the matter.
The details
The Commerce Department plans to approve licenses to China letting Nvidia sell its H200. The chip has higher performance than the H20 it was previously allowed to sell—but it isn’t as powerful as the company’s top Blackwell products released this year nor the Rubin generation of chips coming next year, one of the people said. Semafor previously reported the expected approval.
The move follows a meeting between President Trump and Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang last week, where the pair discussed H200 exports, people familiar with the matter said. Nvidia shares added more than 1%.
Administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio torpedoed a push from Nvidia to sell a slimmed down Blackwell chip to China before a recent trade meeting between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.
Some officials including AI Czar David Sacks and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have backed exporting the H200 because it could be a good compromise that allows Nvidia to compete with China’s Huawei Technologies without vaulting China past the U.S. in AI, people familiar with the discussions said.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration approved H20 exports to China in exchange for 15% of the sales going to the U.S. government, only for China to tell its companies not to use the chips because of alleged security concerns. Some analysts viewed the Chinese message as a negotiating tactic to get a better chip like the H200. It isn’t clear whether the 15% agreement would apply to H200 sales.
The context
Nvidia has been applying a full-court press to the Trump administration and lawmakers this year, seeking permission to send its valuable chips all over the world and arguing that the exports will ensure U.S. technology dominance.
The company has antagonized some administration officials and others in Washington who feel it is giving priority to a sales bonanza over national-security concerns.
“This decision to authorize H200 sales to China is so shortsighted,” said Aaron Bartnick, a former White House technology and security official during the Biden administration who is now at Columbia University. He said he thinks the move will significantly advance China’s chip capabilities and it doesn’t seem like the U.S. got much of consequence in return for allowing the exports.
The think tank Institute for Progress estimates that the H200 is almost six times as powerful as the H20. Newer generations of the company’s products often improve dramatically. The Biden administration imposed export restrictions on key chips that many analysts credit with limiting China’s domestic semiconductor and AI capabilities.
What’s next
Investors will be watching for China’s response to the expected H200 approvals and to see what, if anything, the U.S. gets in return.
The move could be worth billions of dollars in sales to Nvidia and help Chinese tech giants that have struggled to get top chips to train their models. Huang has argued Nvidia should be allowed to compete in the Chinese market because the nation has many of the world’s top AI researchers and the U.S. should want them using American technology.
Huang has also made clear that the scale of AI demand in China makes the country critical for the company’s future. “You’re not going to replace China,” Huang said at an event at the think tank CSIS last week.
Write to Amrith Ramkumar at [email protected] and Robbie Whelan at [email protected]
English (US) ·