Donald Trump
By Ab Susan
Trump just dropped the news on Truth Social: the U.S. will let Nvidia ship its H200 AI chips to “approved” customers in China, and the government will take a 25 % cut of every sale . He framed it as a win‑win—protecting national security while creating American jobs and keeping the tech lead.
The H200 is a step up from Nvidia’s older H100, packing more high‑bandwidth memory and delivering roughly six times the performance of the H20, the chip that’s currently allowed for export .It’s still a generation behind Nvidia’s latest Blackwell and upcoming Rubin GPUs, which aren’t part of the deal.
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang gave the move a thumbs‑up, saying the arrangement “strikes a thoughtful balance” that benefits U.S. workers and the company’s bottom line. Shares nudged up a couple of percent after the announcement, showing the market’s mild approval
But Capitol Hill isn’t exactly throwing a parade. A bipartisan group of senators, including Pete Ricketts and Chris Coons, warned the sale could boost China’s military AI capabilities and introduced the “SAFE Chips Act” to block such exports . Even some Democrats called it a “colossal economic and national security failure
The decision comes on the heels of a Justice Department bust that charged two men with smuggling H100 and H200 chips to China, underscoring how high‑demand AI hardware is fueling illicit markets. The case highlights the tension between opening trade and enforcing export controls.
For now, the Commerce Department is still ironing out the fine print, and the same framework will apply to AMD and Intel. Whether the policy will translate into big new sales for Nvidia—or spark more political pushback—remains to be seen.
