Trump administration greenlights Nvidia AI chip exports to China

The Trump administration formally greenlit Nvidia exports Tuesday, allowing the tech giant to ship its artificial intelligence chips to China and other countries.

In a new rule set to be published Jan. 15, the Commerce Department is easing U.S. export restrictions on China for Nvidia’s H200 chip, a move President Donald Trump announced last month.

"We applaud President Trump's decision to allow America's chip industry to compete to support high paying jobs and manufacturing in America," an Nvidia spokesperson told FOX Business in a statement. "Offering H200 to approved commercial customers, vetted by the Department of Commerce, strikes a thoughtful balance that is great for America."

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The tech company continued, "The Administration's critics are unintentionally promoting the interests of foreign competitors on U.S. entity lists—America should always want its industry to compete for vetted and approved commercial business, supporting real jobs for real Americans." 

The rule outlines that the Commerce Department’s Industry and Security Bureau will revise its license review policy for certain semiconductor exports to China from a presumption of denial to a case-by-case review, partially reversing Biden-era controls on high-end chip exports.

Trump announced last month that he would allow the chip sales in exchange for a 25% fee paid to the U.S. government, saying the deal would be closely monitored to protect national security.

"I have informed President Xi, of China, that the United States will allow Nvidia to ship its H200 products to approved customers in China, and other Countries, under conditions that allow for continued strong National Security," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social in December.

Nvidia's H200 chips are high-performance processors that help run AI programs, including chatbots, machine learning and data-center tasks.

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The regulations state that the chips will undergo third-party testing in the United States to confirm their AI capabilities and functions, and China will not be permitted to receive more than 50% of the total chips sold in the U.S.

Nvidia must certify that there is sufficient supply of the chips in the U.S, and China must also demonstrate sufficient security procedures.

China will be prohibited from using the chips for military purposes.

Reuters reported last month that Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips, each costing around $27,000, far exceeding Nvidia’s current inventory of roughly 700,000 chips.

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during the Consumer Electronics Show last week in Las Vegas that the company was increasing chip production due to strong global demand, including from China, driving up prices for renting the chips in cloud-computing data centers.

Trump has previously slammed rules from the Biden administration limiting exports of advanced AI chips and semiconductors to China due to national security concerns.

Those restrictions were largely aimed at Nvidia’s previous generation of high-end chips, as part of an effort to prevent China from gaining a technological edge.

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Last month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., accused Trump of "selling out America" after announcing that the U.S. planned on allowing Nvidia to export its chips to China and other countries. 

FOX Business' Bonny Chu and Reuters contributed to this report.