Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang presented the keynote address during the annual Nvidia GTC conference held in San Jose, California, last month.
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When Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang participated in a $1 million-per-person dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week, the advanced AI chip known as H20 likely occupied his thoughts.
This is due to the anticipation among chip industry insiders of potential restrictions from the Trump administration concerning the H20, the premier AI chip that U.S. firms can legally export to China, a vital market for one of the globe’s most valuable companies.
Following the Mar-a-Lago dinner, reports suggest the White House shifted its stance on H20 chips, postponing additional restrictions, based on information from two sources familiar with the situation who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
The export controls on H20 had been under development for several months, according to these sources, and were ready for enactment as soon as this week.
This pivot from the White House occurred after Nvidia committed to the Trump administration to increase U.S. investments in AI data centers, as reported by one of the sources.
American legislators have been urging the Trump administration to tighten restrictions on cutting-edge technologies related to AI for weeks. In February, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) called for export controls on the H20 chip following DeepSeek’s revelation of a groundbreaking AI chatbot in January that astonished many.
The decision by the Trump administration to allow Chinese companies to keep purchasing H20 chips represents a significant win for the nation, remarked Chris Miller, a history professor specializing in semiconductors at Tufts University.
“Despite these chips being specially modified to limit their performance, thereby making them legal for sale to China — they outperform many, if not most, of China’s domestically produced chips,” Miller stated. “China remains unable to generate the chip volume it needs domestically, hence its critical reliance on imports of Nvidia chips.”
Neither the White House nor the Commerce Department responded to requests for comment, and Nvidia’s spokesperson declined to provide any remarks.
It remains unclear whether Huang engaged directly with Trump during the event on Friday, but until then, expectations had been that the trade conflict with China would soon incorporate strict regulations on the H20 chip — which was utilized by DeepSeek.
Since 2022, U.S. regulators have imposed limitations on the semiconductor chips that Nvidia can sell to China due to concerns that Beijing might use American technology to enhance its military and AI capabilities. The H20 emerged amidst these restrictions, establishing itself as the most powerful AI chip permissible for export to China under current legislation.
This year, the H20 chip has become increasingly sought after by AI companies because it is crafted to facilitate inference, a computational method that supports AI models like China’s DeepSeek and other AI developments from Meta and OpenAI.
Consequently, it seemed the H20 would also fall under the Trump administration’s crackdown. Facing this, Chinese technology firms reacted aggressively. In the first quarter of this year, leading Chinese companies bought H20 chips worth $16 billion, as reported by The Information, hoarding the products in anticipation of impending U.S. export restrictions.
Despite escalating political pressure to extend American export controls to incorporate the H20 chip, the regulatory process has experienced setbacks largely due to staffing shortages at the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the Commerce Department agency tasked with creating and enforcing such regulations, according to a third individual familiar with the agency’s workings who was likewise not authorized to speak publicly.
BIS has suffered from budget cuts and reorganization efforts initiated by the Trump administration. The agency’s leading export control expert, Matthew Boreman, resigned this year during a significant departure of senior staff members in February.
President Trump has also swiftly dismantled and reorganized technology policies established by the Biden administration, particularly the CHIPS Act, which allocated $39 billion for companies to invest in U.S. semiconductor supply chains.
Last month, Trump directed the formation of a new investment “accelerator” office, taking over much of the semiconductor investment responsibilities previously handled by laid-off CHIPS Act personnel from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an agency significantly impacted by ongoing federal restructuring initiatives.
