Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang tiptoed into politics with a comment taking a shot at the U.S. policy that has cut off sales of his chips to China.
That was because Nvidia had to take a $4.5 billion charge against its Q1 earnings because the company had to immediately cease selling H20 AI chips to China in April. U.S. President Donald Trump imposed the restrictions as part of the trade war over tariffs with China and other countries.
“Let me share my perspective on some topics we’re frequently asked on export control. China is one of the world’s largest AI markets and a springboard to global success with half of the world’s AI researchers based there,” Huang said. “The platform that wins China is positioned to lead globally today. However, the $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry. The H20 export ban ended our Hopper data center business in China. We cannot produce Hopper further to comply. As a result, we are taking a multibillion-dollar write-off on inventory that cannot be sold or repurposed. We are exploring limited ways to compete, but hopper is no longer an option.”
Huang said that, with or without U.S. chips, China has to compute to train and deploy advanced models.
“The question is not whether China will have it. It already does,” he said. “The question is whether one of the world’s largest AI markets will run on American platforms. Shielding Chinese chip makers from U.S. competition only strengthens them abroad and weakens America’s position.”
He added, “Export restrictions have spurred China’s” competitiveness. He said, “The race is not just about chips. It’s about which stack the world runs as that stack grows. Global infrastructure leadership is at stake. The U.S. has based its policy on the assumption that China cannot make any chips. That assumption was always questionable, and now it’s very wrong. China has enormous manufacturing capability. In the end, the platform that wins the AI developers wins AI. AI export controls should strengthen U.S. platforms, not drive half the world’s AI talent” to other shores.
While Huang was critical of policy changes, he also said, “It’s really terrific to see the AI diffusion rule was rescinded. President Trump wants America to win and realizes we are not the only country in the race. And he realizes we have to get the American stack out to the world.”
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