The Trump administration has reversed its plans to restrict exports of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips to China after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
The planned export controls on the H20 chips, which are the most advanced AI processor legally available in China under current U.S. export controls, had been under consideration for months and were reportedly ready to be implemented as soon as this week. The change in plans came after Nvidia promised the Trump administration new U.S. investments in AI data centers.
The White House and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the development. The consideration to restrict shipments of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China originated during the Biden administration and continued under the Trump administration. In January, Reuters reported that the Trump administration was considering tightening restrictions on Nvidia’s sales of its H20 chips designed for the China market.
Nvidia’s H20 AI chips are powerful processors used for artificial intelligence tasks, and there has been a significant surge in orders for these chips driven by demand for low-cost AI models from Chinese companies. Chinese companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba Group, and Tencent Holdings, have placed at least $16 billion in orders for Nvidia’s H20 server chips in the first three months of the year.
This surge in demand was reported by The Information last week, following a Reuters exclusive report in February that highlighted the booming demand for Chinese startup DeepSeek’s low-cost AI models, which has driven the orders for H20 chips. Furthermore, two U.S. lawmakers, Republican John Moolenaar and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, called for more restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips in late January, indicating ongoing scrutiny of Nvidia’s sales to China.
