Topline
Nvidia’s shares fell sharply in premarket trading early on Wednesday, after the company disclosed that the Trump administration has moved to restrict the company from selling its H20 AI chips to China, just weeks after the chipmaker’s billionaire founder and CEO attended a fundraising dinner at President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence to purportedly fend off such a move.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las … More
Key Facts
In a filing with the SEC on Tuesday night, the chipmaker said the U.S. government has informed the company that it will require a special license to export its H20 AI chips to “China (including Hong Kong and Macau),” or to companies headquartered in the country.
The H20 is a cut-down version of Nvidia’s more advanced AI chips, which were specifically designed to comply with earlier restrictions on exporting the company’s top semiconductors to China.
The U.S. government informed Nvidia that the licensing requirement for H20 exports to China will be in place “for the indefinite future,” and the rules aim to address “the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a supercomputer in China.”
The company said it expects to take a $5.5 billion hit in its first quarter results for its 2026 fiscal year.
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How Has Nvidia’s Stock Been Impacted?
Nvidia’s share price fell to $104.32, down more than 7% in premarket trading early on Wednesday. The slide follows an already difficult start to the year for the world’s most valuable chipmaker, whose shares have fallen 16.45% since the start of 2025.
What Do We Know About Nvidia Ceo’s Mar-A-Lago Dinner?
Earlier this month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a $1 million-per-head fundraising dinner for the super PAC MAGA Inc. at Mar-a-Lago, headlined by the president himself. According to NPR, Jensen’s attendance prompted the Trump administration to put additional restrictions on H20 exports on hold. The report said the export controls had been in the works for several months and were set to go into effect last week. The White House had purportedly agreed to back down on the restrictions after Nvidia promised to make major investments in data centers in the U.S. It is unclear why the White House has decided to go forward with the restrictions anyway, but lawmakers from both parties, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., had been calling for such curbs.
What Do We Know About Nvidia’s Planned Investments In The U.s.?
On Monday, Nvidia announced plans to build two factories in Houston and Dallas, which will allow it to assemble its AI supercomputers entirely on U.S. soil. Nvidia has partnered with Taiwanese manufacturing giants Foxconn and Wistron to build the factories and said it expects mass production at the two plants to ramp up within “12-15 months.” The White House touted the announcement as a major win for Trump’s policies and said the president “has made U.S.-based chip manufacturing a priority as part of his relentless pursuit of an American manufacturing renaissance, and it’s paying off.”
Further Reading
Nvidia To Make AI Supercomputers Entirely In U.S. (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/04/16/nvidia-plummets-in-premarket–projects-55-billion-blow-from-new-restrictions-on-ai-chip-exports-to-china/