Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in China on Wednesday, splitting time between high-level meetings in Beijing and Washington as U.S.-China trade tensions escalate.
On Monday, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party announced an investigation into whether Nvidia violated U.S. regulations with its chip sales in Asia—particularly to DeepSeek, an AI startup whose performance rivals ChatGPT at a fraction of the cost.
The U.S. government had already barred Nvidia from selling its H20 chip in China. On Monday, the administration informed the company that it would now require a license for any exports to China—including Hong Kong and Macau—“for the indefinite future.”
Huang’s strategy has included meetings with Chinese trade officials in Beijing, according to The New York Times and Chinese state-owned media. The latter quoted Huang as saying that Nvidia will “spare no effort” to develop products that comply with regulations and serve the Chinese market.
In a filing, Nvidia stated that the new licensing requirement “addresses the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a supercomputer in China.”
The company expects to report approximately $5.5 billion in charges related to H20 product inventory, purchase commitments, and associated reserves in its fiscal first-quarter report on April 27.
According to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Deng, the new export restrictions add another layer of complexity for Nvidia, which had already redesigned the H20 chip to comply with earlier U.S. controls.
On Monday Nvidia also announced plans to build up to $500 billion worth of AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years. The company’s shares fell 2.93% on Thursday amid continued pressure from the curbs.
Leave a Reply