On December 9, according to Bloomberg, U.S. President Trump has approved Nvidia’s export of its H200 AI chip to China, on the condition that the U.S. government can take a 25% share of the sales. The move would mark a major lobbying win for Nvidia and could allow it to regain billions of dollars in lost business in China, a key global market.
Jen-Hsun Huang
Trump announced the decision on his Twitter account, ending weeks of discussions with advisers over whether to approve the export of H200 chips to China. Sales will be limited to "approved customers," and the U.S. government will get a 25 percent cut, he added. Other chip manufacturers including Intel and AMD will also be eligible to obtain licenses to sell chips to China.
"We will protect national security, create American jobs, and maintain America's leadership in AI," Trump said in his post. "Nvidia's U.S. customers are already deploying its excellent, extremely advanced Blackwell chips and will soon deploy Rubin chips, both of which are not included in this agreement." Rubin is Nvidia's more advanced chip series.
Before Trump announced the decision, a person familiar with the matter said that approving Nvidia's H200 exports to China was a compromise, which is based on the previous generation Hopper architecture. Nvidia has previously lobbied the Trump administration to sell its more advanced Blackwell chips to Chinese customers.
For Nvidia, the approval to sell H200 chips to China is a victory in its push for Trump and Congress to relax export controls. The controls have been preventing Nvidia from selling its AI chips to China, the world's second-largest economy. Since the U.S. election in November 2024, Huang has developed a close relationship with Trump and has used this relationship to illustrate his point: Export controls will only help leading local Chinese companies such as Huawei.
As of press time, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Nvidia have not commented on this.