Trump administration backs off Nvidia's 'H20' chip crackdown after Mar-a-Lago dinner
When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a $1 million-a-head dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week, a chip known as the H20 may have been on his mind.
That's because chip industry insiders widely expected the Trump administration to impose curbs on the H20, the most cutting-edge AI chip U.S. companies can legally sell to China, a crucial market to one of the world's most valuable companies.
Following the Mar-a-Lago dinner, the White House reversed course on H20 chips, putting the plan for additional restrictions on hold, according to two sources with knowledge of the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The planned American export controls on the H20 had been in the works for months, according to the two sources, and were ready to be implemented as soon as this week.
The change of course from the White House came after Nvidia promised the Trump administration new U.S. investments in AI data centers, according to one of the sources.
American lawmakers have been pressuring the Trump administration for weeks to place stricter curbs on cutting edge technology related to artificial intelligence. In February, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., jointly called for export controls on the H20 chip after Chinese tech company DeepSeek unveiled a breakthrough AI chatbot that stunned the world in January.
The Trump administration's decision to allow Chinese firms to continue to purchase H20 chips is a major victory for the country, said Chris Miller, a Tufts University history professor and semiconductor expert.
"Even though these chips are specifically modified to reduce their performance thus making them legal to sell to China — they are better than many, perhaps most, of China's homegrown chips," Miller said. "China still can't produce the volume of chips it needs domestically, so it is critically reliant on imports of Nvidia chips."
The White House and the Commerce Department did not return requests for comment. A spokesman for Nvidia declined to comment.
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[https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5356480/nvidia-china-ai-h20-chips-trump](https://www.npr.org/2025/04/09/nx-s1-5356480/nvidia-china-ai-h20-chips-trump)
