The meeting took place amid U.S. scrutiny of Chinese artificial intelligence growth.
President Donald Trump met with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the afternoon of Jan. 31, following reports that the administration is looking for new ways to restrict artificial intelligence (AI) chip sales in China.
The meeting marked the first between the two since Trump took office.
Trump, in a press briefing two hours later, called Huang “a great gentleman” and said they had a “good meeting.”
“I can’t say what’s going to happen,” he told reporters.
Reiterating the tariff proposal he made days earlier, he added, “Eventually we are going to put tariffs on chips.”
Trump also said tariffs are in store for chips, pharmaceuticals, medicine, steel, aluminum, and copper, as well as against the European Union.
Nvidia told The Epoch Times that Huang “appreciated the opportunity to meet with President Trump and discuss semiconductors and AI policy.” Huang and the president “discussed the importance of strengthening U.S. technology and AI leadership,” a spokesperson said.
The talks took place amid mounting concerns about the rapid AI development in China. Chinese AI startup DeepSeek last week spooked the market by launching a free chatbot it claimed to have built with a fraction of the costs of the U.S. versions.
The Chinese AI tool quickly topped Apple’s App Store as the most downloaded app, erasing $1 trillion from tech stocks. Shares of leading AI chipmaker Nvidia fell by 17 percent at one point.
Some lawmakers have urged for curbs on Nvidia chip exports to China in the wake of the DeepSeek shock.
Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the top members on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, said such a move is necessary as the State and Commerce Departments conduct a review of U.S. export control “in light of developments involving strategic adversaries” under Trump’s recent executive order.
The DeepSeek’s AI model relied on some 2,000 Nvidia H800 chips during the training, according to a paper published by the Chinese company’s researchers in December 2024. Those chips were a less powerful version of Nvidia’s H100 flagship chips, which Nvidia designed for China in compliance with 2022 export rules. Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek, told Chinese media in 2023 that the company had stockpiled Nvidia’s A100 chips, which Washington also barred from export to China in 2000.
By Eva Fu
