The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has now taken a step back from this histrionic ball that transformed his political agenda. The US representative announced via his social network Truth that he would allow the world’s leading chipmaker, Nvidia, to sell microprocessors designed for use with artificial intelligence to approved Chinese customers. The Republican imposed a deposit of 25% on the sale price, to make the product more expensive for Chinese competitors.
Nvidia and AMD shares were up about 2% in recent trading following Trump’s announcement. Intel, which is unlikely to benefit from the changes in the near term, rose less than 1%.
“I informed Chinese President Xi that the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship its H200 products to authorized customers in China and other countries, under conditions that ensure national security,” the Casa Blanca tenant wrote on the social network he created to express his opinions. “President Xi responded positively! 25% of the revenue will be paid to the United States. This policy will support the American economy, strengthen the American manufacturing industry and benefit taxpayers,” the petitioner said.
Analysts have expressed concerns about allowing chips to be sold to competitors of the Asian giant in a race between two powers to see how AI develops before, but on the other hand there is also the risk of significantly reducing the market to a US company like Nvidia which needs resources to continue developing latest generation chips, which enable faster development of AI.
Indeed, the H200 microprocessor that Trump authorized to sell to Beijing is not the most advanced. The largest company in the world, headquartered in Santa Clara, California, is working on the development of cutting-edge chips like Blackwell and Rubin, expected to give new impetus to American companies like OpenIA, Alphabet or Amazon in the AI career.
“NVIDIA’s US customers are moving forward with their incredible, advanced Blackwell chips, and now with Rubin, none of them are part of this deal,” said the US president, who said only sales could go to “approved customers” by the Commerce Department. Additionally, this opened the door to the possibility that other chipmakers, such as Intel and AMD, could also begin marketing chips in China again.
Although they still do not know the details of the new measure, which will allow the resumption of microprocessor trade to China, Trump made it clear that sales will benefit from a 25% margin, which will be applied through an agreement under which Nvidia will have to send its products from Taiwan manufacturing plants to the United States for inspection by the Industrial Workshop and Security of the Commerce Department as part of a security review, according to a Commerce Department employee to Bloomberg. The chips would then be sent to customers in China.
In a statement this month, Nvidia celebrated the decision and said the authorization “will help boost good-paying manufacturing jobs in the United States.”
The new approval of licenses for the sale of Nvidia chips highlights the influence of the American manufacturer’s delegated council, Jensen Huang, with the president. Huang has visited Casa Blanca numerous times, and a few weeks ago he was invited to Trump’s gala honoring Saudi Arabia’s Hereditary Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, which was attended by a select group of VIPs. Last week, he returned to meet the president at the Oval Despacho to express his concern about the federal veto on the Asian market, valued at approximately $50 billion. Huang says the veto alone benefits Chinese companies like Huawei, which see the way clear to sell more and be able to allocate more resources to investigations.
Rather, there are concerns that Chinese companies will use chips to develop their own AI products, which could pose national security risks, an argument that Joe Biden’s administration has used to limit exports.
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