Topline
Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang on Friday said he hopes his company will be able to sell its flagship Blackwell AI chips to China “someday” but said no decisions had been made to do so, a day after President Donald Trump said export controls on Nvidia’s most advanced AI accelerators did not come up during his face-to-face talks with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
Jensen Huang, President and CEO of NVIDIA, delivers a speech to business leaders during the APEC CEO summit in Gyeongju, South Korea.
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Key Facts
While speaking to reporters in South Korea, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, Huang was asked about Nvidia’s intent to sell Blackwell chips to China and said, “I don’t know, I hope so someday.”
Jensen said, “I think it’s really good for America and it’s really good for China that Nvidia could participate in the Chinese market,” before adding that “no decisions have been made, and we’ll see how it turns out.”
Huang noted that the decision on the matter will have to be made by Trump, as the U.S. has imposed export controls restricting the sale of cutting-edge AI chips to China.
What Has Trump Said About China And Nvidia’s Blackwell Chips?
Earlier this week, Trump was asked if the export of Blackwell AI chips would be brought up during his talks with Xi. He replied, “We’ll be speaking about Blackwells,” which he went on to describe as “super duper” and touted the chip as “probably 10 years ahead of any other chip.” However, when asked about this after his meeting with Xi, the president said Blackwell chips were not part of the talks. “We did discuss chips…and they are going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips and we make great chips,” Trump said, adding that he will have a word with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. The president noted further discussions are between China and Nvidia, with the U.S. being “sort of the arbitrator or the referee.”
Key Background
In August, it was reported that the Trump administration had granted Nvidia export licenses to allow the export of its H20 chips to China. The H20 is a cut-down version of the H100 chip, the flagship of the company’s Hopper AI chip lineup—the predecessor to the Blackwell series. During the company’s annual GPU Technology Conference earlier this week, Huang said: “The president has licensed us to ship to China, but China has blocked us from being able to ship to China…They’ve made it very clear that they don’t want Nvidia to be there right now.”
Tangent
Nvidia’s shares rose to $206.80, up nearly 2% from Thursday’s close, in premarket trading early on Friday. If the early trading bump remains when markets open, Nvidia’s market cap will cross $5 trillion for the second time this week—after slipping below the mark on Thursday.
Further Reading
Trump Halves Fentanyl Tariffs On China After ‘Amazing’ Meeting With Xi—As China Pauses Rare Earth Controls (Forbes)
Trump Will Discuss Nvidia Export Controls With Xi As Market Cap Nears $5 Trillion (Forbes)