"Trump Withdraws Nvidia AI Chip Export Restrictions to China"

Jensen Huang Visits Mar-a-Lago

Promises AI Data Center Investment

It has been reported that the Trump administration has withdrawn plans to restrict the export of Nvidia's H20 chip, a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) chips, to China.

According to NPR, a U.S. public broadcaster, on the 9th (local time), President Trump made this decision after meeting with Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last week. The U.S. has been restricting the export of cutting-edge semiconductors to China since 2022 for national security reasons. Instead, Nvidia has been exporting the H20, a downgraded version of the advanced AI semiconductor H100, to China.

However, it is reported that the Trump administration had been reviewing the control of H20 exports to China since January and planned to implement it this week. The H20 gained attention earlier this year when Chinese AI startup DeepSeek succeeded in developing a low-cost AI model. DeepSeek developed an AI model comparable to U.S. big tech using the lower-performance H20, among others. In U.S. political circles, there were growing calls to expand export controls to curb China's AI development. Senators Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Massachusetts) and Josh Hawley (Republican, Missouri) jointly demanded H20 export controls in January.

It is known that Nvidia's promise of U.S. investment was behind the Trump administration's decision to withdraw the export restriction plans. A source said that CEO Huang promised new investments in AI data centers during his meeting with President Trump, which led to a change in the Trump administration's policy. However, specific investment details are not known.

In U.S. political circles, there was backlash against opening the way for the export of advanced semiconductors to China. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (Democrat, Illinois) of the House China Special Committee warned, "Export controls are effective, and there is no time to waste," adding, "The longer we delay export controls, the more our adversaries will stockpile to defeat us."

Chinese companies such as ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent reportedly ordered $16 billion (about 23 trillion won) worth of H20 from January to March to secure supplies before the import route was blocked.

Reporter Kim In-yeop inside@hankyung.com