AI China Curbs Weaken America’s Position, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Says

Trump-administration policy that restricts the sale of Nvidia products to China “weakens America’s position,” CEO Jensen Huang said Wednesday.

Huang’s comments came during a conference call after chip giant Nvidia (NVDA) reported its latest financial results—which included a multibillion dollar hit to revenue and a ding to earnings associated with export curbs on the company’s H20 chips to China. (Read Investopedia’s live coverage of Nvidia’s results here.) They follow a mid-May trade truce of sorts between Trump and China, which have put on hold steep tariffs on each other’s imports while the countries seek a trade deal.

Instead of limiting Chinese AI capabilities, Huang said, the curbs have “spurred China’s innovation and scale.”

“The question is not whether China will have AI—it already does,” Huang said. “The question is whether one of the world’s largest AI markets will run on American platforms. Shielding Chinese chipmakers from U.S. competition only strengthens them abroad and weakens America’s position.”

Policy assumptions that China can’t make its own AI chips are “clearly wrong,” said Huang.

The CEO also called it “terrific” that Trump rescinded the Biden administration’s AI diffusion rule, which would’ve put additional restrictions on the export of AI chips, particularly to countries that aren’t U.S. allies. The Trump administration has said it’s looking to replace the rules, and analysts have warned that new ones could be stricter than Biden’s.

“President Trump wants America to win, and he also realizes that that we’re not the only country in the race,” Huang said Wednesday.

The conference call followed news that the administration told companies that make software used to design semiconductors to stop selling to Chinese companies. That news hit shares of companies in that sector during Wednesday’s session.