[Text/Watchman Network Shao Yun] Local time on April 9, US National Public Radio (NPR) cited sources as saying that the Trump administration has temporarily suspended the plan to expand restrictions on Nvidia's sales to China to include the "special version" of artificial intelligence (AI) chip H20.
The chief executive officer of Nvidia, Huang Renxun, was reportedly present at a luxurious dinner held at Trump's private residence Mar-a-Lago in Florida last Friday (April 4). According to informed sources, the White House had been planning export controls on the H20 chip for several months and intended to implement them as early as this week. However, after Nvidia promised to make new investments in AI data centers in the U.S., the White House changed its stance.
NPR said it is unclear whether Huang Renxun directly spoke with Trump on April 4. But according to a disclosure by Vaughn Hillyard, a reporter from NBC News, Huang Renxun met with Trump on April 4.
In response, the White House and the Department of Commerce did not respond to requests for comment. An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment.
It is worth noting that in March, Huang Renxun stated in an interview with the Financial Times that Nvidia might invest tens of billions of dollars over the next four years to purchase American-made chips. "Overall, we may purchase products worth about $500 billion in total over the next four years. I think we can easily produce thousands of billions of such products in the United States."
A report by NBC News White House reporter Vaughn Hillyard disclosed that Huang Renxun met with Trump last week. X screenshot
In the context of the U.S. government's long-term unreasonable suppression of China in the semiconductor industry, the H20 chip is the most advanced AI chip that U.S. companies can legally sell to the Chinese market. Sources said that before this, people believed that Washington would soon impose strict controls on the export of the H20 chip.
NPR said that after China's AI startup DeepSeek's reasoning model became popular in January, the H20 chip supporting reasoning tasks has become increasingly favored by AI companies, prompting U.S. lawmakers to pressure the Trump administration to impose stricter restrictions on the export of cutting-edge technologies related to AI.
On January 29, the U.S. House of Representatives "China-U.S. Strategic Competition Special Committee" wrote to the White House, urging further tightening of Nvidia's AI chip exports and considering additional export controls on the H20 and "similarly complex" chips based on Trump's recent memorandum requiring a comprehensive review of U.S. foreign trade situation.
On the 30th, Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration was studying the expansion of Nvidia's sales restrictions to China to include the H20. On the 31st, Trump confirmed that he had a meeting with Huang Renxun at the White House that day. This was their first meeting, as Huang Renxun missed Trump's inauguration ceremony due to a previously scheduled trip to China during the Spring Festival. It was reported that they discussed DeepSeek and tightening AI chip exports.
But according to a source familiar with the operations of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the implementation of the Trump administration's planned restrictions encountered delays, partly due to a shortage of personnel. The BIS is the office under the U.S. Department of Commerce responsible for designing and enforcing export controls. NPR said that after Trump took office and promoted the streamlining of federal agencies, many senior staff members left the BIS, including Matthew Boreman, the "most senior export control expert" in the U.S.
After the latest reports were published, the U.S. House of Representatives "China-U.S. Strategic Competition Special Committee," which frequently manipulates anti-China issues and hyped up the "China threat," quickly opposed it. NPR said that Raja Krishnamoorthi, a senior member of the "China-U.S. Strategic Competition Special Committee" and Democratic congressman from Illinois, expressed disappointment in Trump's suspension of the crackdown on Nvidia's H20 chips in a statement.
Krishnamoorthi claimed that the U.S. "has no time to waste" in terms of advanced chip export controls, adding that "every extra day that the U.S. fails to restrict chip exports aimed at evading existing controls gives our adversaries more time to stockpile and defeat us."
Nvidia has long opposed the U.S. expansion of export controls on chips to China, arguing that restricting Chinese companies' access to American technology will only accelerate innovation and development of China's domestic semiconductor industry. In response to previous export control measures imposed by the Biden administration, Huang Renxun once said: "If they cannot buy from the U.S., they will make it themselves. The U.S. must be careful, as China is a very important market for the technology industry."
Nvidia released its fiscal year 2025 fourth-quarter financial results and full-year performance for fiscal year 2025 on February 23. The financial report showed that in fiscal year 2025 ending January 26, Nvidia's annual revenue once again exceeded Wall Street expectations, reaching approximately $130.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 114%; gross margin increased by 2.3 percentage points, reaching 75%; net profit was approximately $72.9 billion, a year-on-year increase of 145%. Among these, Nvidia's revenue in the China region for fiscal year 2025 was $17.108 billion, the highest in history. Currently, 53% of Nvidia's revenue in fiscal year 2025 comes from regions outside the U.S.
Previously, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian stated that China has repeatedly expressed its firm position against the U.S.'s malicious blockade and suppression of China's semiconductor industry. The U.S. has politicized, generalized security concerns, and toolized economic and technological issues, continuously increasing export controls on chips to China and coercing other countries to suppress China's semiconductor industry. Such actions hinder the development of the global semiconductor industry and will ultimately backfire, harming both others and itself.
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Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7491490594401813031/
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