Jensen Huang, the head of Nvidia, said again Friday that he was eager for the Silicon Valley chipmaking giant to resume selling advanced semiconductors in China but expressed uncertainty about whether this week's meeting between President Donald Trump and China's top leader, Xi Jinping, brought the company any closer to achieving that goal.
Huang arrived in South Korea shortly after the face-to-face summit of the two leaders in the country Thursday. Trump told reporters that the leaders discussed semiconductors without addressing Nvidia's most advanced artificial intelligence technology. He added that Chinese officials would talk to Nvidia about "taking chips," with the United States playing "referee."
The remarks created confusion because Trump had suggested before the meeting that he would discuss Nvidia's most powerful AI semiconductors with Xi, fueling speculation that the United States might ease restrictions limiting access to the technology.
"I don't have any new insight from the meeting," Huang said at a news conference on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit Friday. "I hope that we will have new policies that allow Nvidia to go back into China, for China to welcome Nvidia back."
Amid skyrocketing demand for technology infrastructure to power AI systems, access to Nvidia's chips has become a national security issue. Nvidia has been thrust into the middle of the economic feud between China and the United States.
Before Trump came into office, the U.S. government had already imposed rules to limit the sales of Nvidia's most powerful chips in China. The Trump administration initially banned exports of Nvidia's H20 chip, a downgraded version of the company's Hopper chips, which were made particularly for China. It reversed that decision in July, when Trump said the H20 chip could be sold and that the federal government would take a 15% cut of that revenue.
But before Nvidia could move forward, China closed off the company's access to its market. In July, China's internet regulator summoned Nvidia to explain security risks associated with one of its chips. Beijing also discouraged Chinese companies from using the H20 chip, pushing them to try domestic alternatives.
Huang said Nvidia's business in China is now at "zero," after once holding almost total market share.
Source Name : Economic Times