By Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Discussions with the White House to allow American AI chip company Nvidia to sell a less advanced version of its next-generation advanced GPU chip to China will take time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Thursday.
When asked about White House talks on Blackwell chip sales to China in a Fox Business Network interview with “The Claman Countdown,” Huang said the discussions had started.
“The conversation will take a while, but … President Trump understands that having the world build AI on the American tech stack helps America win the AI race.”
Earlier this month, Trump suggested he might allow Nvidia to sell a scaled-down version of the chip in China, noting that it would be 30-50% less capable than the regular version.
That comes despite deep-seated fears in Washington that China could harness U.S. artificial intelligence capabilities to supercharge its military. China hawks fear allowing even stripped-down Blackwell chip sales to China could open the door to Beijing securing more advanced computing power from the U.S., even as the two countries battle for technology supremacy.
Reuters in May reported that Nvidia was preparing a new chip for China that was a variant of its most recent state-of-the-art AI Blackwell chips at a significantly lower cost.
Nvidia’s exclusion of potential China sales from the forecast for the current quarter underscored the uncertainty caused by Chinese-U.S. trade tensions, despite Nvidia striking a deal with President Donald Trump for export licenses in exchange for 15% of China sales of its H20 AI chips. Huang said the company does not yet have H20 orders from China.
Asked if he would be forced to say yes if Trump demanded 15% of Blackwell chip sales to China, Huang suggested he was open to it.
“I don’t know that it’s ‘forced to say yes,’ but ultimately, it’s in the best interest of the world, of our country, for us to be able to sell in China,” Huang said. “So whatever it takes to get it approved for us to be able to sell in China is fine with us.”
He estimated the AI market in China is worth $50 billion to Nvidia. “My hope is that we’ll be able to go back and address a significant part of that $50 billion,” Huang said.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward, Alexandra Alper and David Shepardson, Editing by Franklin Paul, Rod Nickel)
