Trump weighing whether to allow Nvidia to sell advanced AI chips to China: Report

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump is considering whether to allow Nvidia to sell its advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview published on Monday (Nov 24), according to Bloomberg News.

Lutnick said the president was consulting “lots of different advisers” as he weighs potential exports of Nvidia’s H200 chips. Bloomberg reported that the decision to approve the sales is currently on Trump’s desk.

The discussions follow US media reports on Friday that officials had begun early talks on the possibility of allowing China to buy the H200, which has more high-bandwidth memory than the H100 and can process data more quickly.

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The potential easing of export restrictions would represent a softening in Washington’s position after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a trade and tech truce in Busan last month.

An Nvidia spokesperson said current US rules prevent the company from offering a competitive data-centre GPU in China, “allowing foreign competitors to gain a significant foothold in that large market”.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

China has remained a challenge for Nvidia since the United States imposed export curbs in 2022 to ensure Beijing’s military could not benefit from top-tier American technology. The restrictions have pushed Nvidia to pursue growth in the Middle East.

Last week, the Commerce Department approved shipments of the equivalent of up to 70,000 next-generation Nvidia Blackwell chips to Saudi Arabia’s Humain and the UAE’s G42.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said earlier this month that there were “no active discussions” about selling Blackwell chips to China despite speculation that a scaled-down version could be offered.