Trump "25% of NVIDIA's China sales to government"… Conditional approval [Stocks+]

Higher-spec than the H20 approved for China sales in August

Trump: "Strengthen U.S. jobs and manufacturing, benefit taxpayers"

U.S. President Donald Trump said he will allow NVIDIA's H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chip to be sold to China's 'approved customers.' The condition is a structure in which the U.S. government takes 25% of the sales.

On the 8th (local time), Trump wrote on Truth Social that "Chinese President Xi Jinping responded positively to this proposal," and claimed, "This measure will strengthen U.S. jobs and manufacturing and benefit taxpayers."

He said the Commerce Department is finalizing the details and that the same approach will apply to major U.S. chip companies such as AMD and Intel. Earlier, NVIDIA and AMD agreed in August to share 15% of sales of AI chips for sale to China with the U.S. government. However, around the same time the Chinese government warned companies against using NVIDIA's H20 chips designed for domestic use, which again heightened tensions between the two countries.

The H200 is known to be a product with performance one level higher than the H20, which NVIDIA separately produced to avoid China's sales restrictions. On hopes for Commerce Department approval, NVIDIA's stock rose intraday but later gave back some gains. It closed up about 2% in after-hours trading.

NVIDIA told CNBC that it was "a decision that allows the U.S. chip industry to maintain its global competitiveness," and that "the method of supplying the H200 to commercial customers vetted by the Commerce Department is a very beneficial compromise for the United States."

Semiconductors are a core industry at the center of the U.S.-China competition for AI supremacy. When China at one point controlled exports of rare earths needed for producing advanced chips, the Trump administration warned of large tariff increases on Chinese products, and tensions between the two countries have continued. After the Korea-China-U.S. summit at the end of October, when the two countries agreed to a tentative truce to halt 'chip retaliation,' Trump said he had "discussed the issue of exporting NVIDIA chips with Chairman Xi Jinping."

New York=Shin-young Park, correspondent nyusos@hankyung.com