US Allows Nvidia to Sell Advanced AI Chips to China

Washington is cracking the door open for advanced AI chips headed to China—just not all the way. The Trump administration has formally authorized exports of Nvidia's H200, its second-most powerful AI chip, to Chinese buyers under a set of restrictions meant to ease national security worries while giving the government a financial boost, per Reuters. A third-party lab must test the chips' technical capabilities before shipment, Chinese buyers can't receive more than half the volume sold to US customers, and Nvidia has to attest that enough H200s remain in the United States. Chinese firms, for their part, must agree not to use the chips for military purposes and show they have safeguards in place.

The move builds on President Trump's earlier announcement that he would permit the sales in exchange for a 25% fee to the US government. That announcement, coming before assurances that the chips wouldn't go to the military, drew bipartisan criticism from China hardliners who said the chips could accelerate Beijing's AI and military ambitions. Saif Khan, a former White House technology and national security official under President Biden, warned the rule could allow China to secure roughly 2 million advanced AI chips—on par, he said, with the computing firepower of a leading US frontier AI company—and argued the administration will have a hard time enforcing requirements meant to keep Chinese cloud providers "from supporting nefarious uses."

The Biden administration blocked the sales over fears they would give China's military and tech industries a leg-up, per the BBC. But the Trump team—led on AI policy by David Sacks—argues that selling US chips into China could actually blunt the rise of domestic rivals like Huawei by keeping Nvidia and AMD at the cutting edge. A Nvidia rep says the change will boost manufacturing and jobs in the US. The company currently has about 700,000 H200s, each valued at $27,000. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last week the company is ramping up production to meet surging demand from China and elsewhere. Nvidia's more advanced semiconductor, Blackwell, remains unavailable for sale in China.