{"id":108004,"date":"2025-12-22T04:52:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=108004"},"modified":"2025-12-22T04:52:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T04:52:30","slug":"us-launches-review-of-advanced-nvidia-ai-chip-sales-to-china-sources-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=108004","title":{"rendered":"US launches review of advanced Nvidia AI chip sales to China, sources say"},"content":{"rendered":"
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U.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0administration has launched a review that could result in the first shipments to China of Nvidia\u2019s second-most powerful AI chips, five sources said, making good on his pledge to allow the controversial sales.<\/p>\n

Trump this month said he would\u00a0allow sales\u00a0of Nvidia\u2019s\u00a0H200 chips to China, with the U.S. government collecting a 25% fee, and that the sales would help keep U.S. firms ahead of Chinese chipmakers by cutting demand for Chinese chips.<\/p>\n

The move\u00a0drew fire\u00a0from China hawks across the U.S. political spectrum, with concerns that the chips would supercharge Beijing\u2019s military and erode the U.S. advantage in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

But questions have remained about how quickly the U.S. might approve such sales and whether Beijing would allow Chinese firms to purchase the Nvidia chips.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees export policy, has sent license applications for the chip sales to the State, Energy and Defence Departments for review, the sources said on condition of anonymity because the process is not public.<\/p>\n

Those agencies have 30 days to weigh in, according to export regulations.<\/p>\n

One of the sources, an administration official, emphasised the review would be thorough and \u201cnot some perfunctory box we are checking.\u201d<\/p>\n

But under the regulations, the final decision rests with Trump.<\/p>\n

The start of the inter-agency licensing review has not been reported previously. The Commerce Department and Nvidia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

A White House spokesperson did not comment on the review, but said \u201cthe Trump administration is committed to ensuring the dominance of the American tech stack \u2013 without compromising on national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

BIDEN HAD BANNED ADVANCED AI CHIP SALES TO CHINA<\/p>\n

The Biden administration had imposed a raft of restrictions on advanced AI chip sales to China and countries it feared could become conduits for smuggling into the rival nation, citing national security fears.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s move represents a departure from that policy and a dramatic reversal from his first term, when he drew international attention by cracking down on Chinese access to U.S. technology. Back then, he cited claims that Beijing steals American intellectual property and harnesses commercially obtained technology to bolster its military, which Beijing denies.<\/p>\n

Exporting large numbers of the chips to China would be \u201ca significant strategic mistake,\u201d said Chris McGuire, a former White House National Security Council official under President Joe Biden and senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n

McGuire described the chips as \u201cthe one thing holding China back in AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot possibly fathom how the departments of Commerce, State, Energy, and Defence could certify that exporting these chips to China is in the U.S. national security interest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Led by White House AI czar David Sacks, several members of the Trump administration now argue that shipping advanced AI chips to China discourages Chinese competitors like Huawei from redoubling efforts to catch up with Nvidia\u2019s and AMD\u2019s\u00a0most advanced chip designs.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported last week that Nvidia was considering an\u00a0increase in production\u00a0of the H200, the immediate predecessor to its current flagship Blackwell chips, after initial orders from China outstripped the current capacity.<\/p>\n

While the H200 chips are\u00a0slower than Nvidia\u2019s Blackwell chips\u00a0on many AI tasks, they remain widely used in industry and have never been allowed for sale in China.<\/p>\n

Trump had previously\u00a0opened the door to sales\u00a0of a less-advanced version of Nvidia\u2019s Blackwell chips, its cutting-edge offering, but backed away from the move and approved sales of the H200 instead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"USU.S. President\u00a0Donald Trump’s\u00a0administration has launched a review that could result in the first shipments to China of Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chips, five sources said, making good on his pledge to allow the controversial sales.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14298,10,9,2139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nvidia-ai-chip","category-politics","category-popular","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=108004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=108004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=108004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=108004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}