President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that “the United States will allow NVIDIA to ship H200 products to approved customers in China.”
Nvidia's H200 is one generation behind the latest “Blackwell” chips and is considered one of the most advanced and high-performance AI chips available anywhere.
President Trump said the Blackwell chip was not included in the deal.
Still, the move could be worth billions of dollars to Nvidia, the world's most valuable company. Nvidia says it currently has more than $500 billion in orders for its top AI chips for this year and next, and that's before taking Chinese buyers into account.
The president also said he would allow Intel, AMD and “other great American companies” to sell similar chips to Chinese customers. “The Department of Commerce is finalizing the details,” he said.
Monday's announcement effectively ends a ban on U.S. companies selling AI chips to China.
The president wrote in Truth Social that the U.S. government will receive 25% of sales of approved chips, up from the previously announced 15%.
However, it remains to be seen whether China will allow chip imports. After the US announced it would allow an even older generation of Nvidia chips, known as H20, to be sold in China, the Xi administration effectively said it didn't want those chips.
President Trump said in a social media post, “President Xi responded positively!”
“We applaud President Trump's decision to allow the U.S. chip industry to compete to support America's high-wage jobs and manufacturing,” Nvidia told NBC News in a statement.
“Offering the H200 to commercial customers, vetted and approved by the Department of Commerce, strikes an excellent balance for the United States,” the company said in a statement.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been lobbying the White House for months to allow Nvidia to sell some chips to Chinese customers.
But President Trump's approval does not mean the issue is agreed upon in Washington.
A bipartisan group of members of Congress has expressed serious concerns about allowing Chinese customers to purchase U.S. AI chips.
Earlier this month, Hwang visited with Republican senators on Capitol Hill to discuss artificial intelligence-related policy.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) did not attend the meeting, saying he did not consider Mr. Huang to be an “objective, reliable source of information on whether we should sell chips to China.”
Kennedy said Huang wants to sell to Chinese customers for economic benefit. South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds and others said it was a “healthy debate.”
“Denying China access to these AI chips is essential to our national security,” Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts said in a statement last week.
Democrats have also expressed concerns. Ricketts worked with Delaware Sen. Chris Coons to introduce the Safe Chip Act.
“Just as the U.S. dollar is the global standard on which the economy is built, we want an American technology stack to be the foundation of the world's technology and industry, and that includes China,” Huang told Yahoo Finance in August.
AMD did not respond to requests for comment. Intel declined to comment.
The easing of export restrictions on China will occur just as relations between the United States and China thaw.
China recently began accelerating its purchases of U.S. soybeans and greenlit the export of many rare earth minerals to U.S. buyers.
President Trump said at a White House event with farmers early Monday that China may buy even more soybeans than originally agreed.
Within minutes of the president's remarks, Nvidia stock rose nearly 3% in after-hours trading.
