A paper published last week found that Nvidia’s Blackwell chips, even when scaled down, could help China quickly close the AI gap.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Oct. 31 that he is hopeful the company will be able to sell its flagship Blackwell chips in China at some point, though there are no plans to do so at the moment.
“I hope so, but that’s a decision for President Trump to make,” Huang told reporters on the sidelines of the APEC CEO summit in Gyeongju, South Korea.
The United States has put export controls on sales of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips to China, seeking to limit its tech progress, particularly in applications that could help its military.
Huang’s position is that China is advancing in AI, whether it has Nvidia chips or not.
“Remember, China makes plenty of AI chips themselves, and the Chinese military surely has plenty of access to chips that are created in China,” Huang said. “The fact is that China has blocked H20, and so, in a lot of ways, China is saying that, ‘Listen, we have plenty of AI technology ourselves.’ So the national security concern, from that perspective, I think, is really answered by the fact that China doesn’t want H20 or any American chips.”
In August, a Chinese state-affiliated social media account urged companies to avoid buying Nvidia’s H20 chips because of an alleged backdoor feature. An Nvidia spokesperson denied the claims at the time.
Earlier this week, Huang told reporters that China has made it clear it doesn’t want Nvidia in the market, and Nvidia hasn’t applied for new export licenses as a result.
After the Oct. 30 bilateral meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that semiconductors had been discussed and China was “going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips,” but added, “We’re not talking about the Blackwell.”
Trump’s mention of Blackwell chips on Air Force One earlier this week had prompted lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to urge caution.
The House Select Committee on the CCP said in a post on X that its chair, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), had told the Trump administration that the United States “cannot sell the latest advanced AI chips to our country’s primary adversary.”
