It appears that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has signed a contract with the Trump administration to avoid export restrictions on the company’s H20 AI chips.
According to NPR, the most advanced Nvidia-produced AI chip that could still be exported from the US to China thanks to Huang’s promise to invest in new American AI data centers, H20, made the proposal during dinner at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Resort last week.
Nvidia declined to comment.
Many in the semiconductor industry were afraid of the H20, which was modified to have lower performance than other NVIDIA chips, but they were heading towards restrictions as they were reportedly one of the chips used to train the R1 open AI model. Released in January, the R1 created a powerful performance headline compared to models from US-based AI labs, including Openai.
Senators from both sides of the aisle are calling for H20 restrictions. According to NPR, even the Trump administration was said to have prepared H20 export controls before the reversal of course.
It’s not at all surprising that Trump has agreed to shelve some potential chip limits in exchange for investments in US AI infrastructure from NVIDIA, but it appears that NVIDIA’s continued export of H20 to China will counter the administration’s goal of ensuring US control in AI.
What further confuses the move is the Trump administration’s decision to maintain a set of AI chip export rules introduced by President Joe Biden, who will step down in January. These rules have shifted chip export restrictions to almost all countries other than the US, including US allies, due to stricter restrictions in China and Russia.
Nvidia called these guidelines “unprecedented, false guides” and said it is likely to curb global innovation.
Many AI companies other than Nvidia have resorted to Trump’s “American first” approach to AI to curry favor with the administration. Openai collaborated with SoftBank and Oracle in January on a $500 billion US data center initiative called the Stargate Project. Microsoft pledged $80 billion to build AI data centers in 2025, with 50% of which allocated to the US.
Trump is strongly armed with certain partners to get the results he wants. He reportedly told Taiwanese semiconductor company TSMC that if the company did not build a new chip factory in the US, it would have to pay up to 100% tax.