NVIDIA Gets H20 Chip Permit for China, Revisiting Trump's Middle East Trip, Apple Places $500M Bet on American Rare Earth Magnets
Happy Tuesday. Let’s jump right into today’s update.
NVIDIA Gets H20 Chip Permit for China
Here’s the AP:
“Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang says the technology giant has won approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced H20 computer chips used to develop artificial intelligence to China.
The news came in a company blog post late Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run CGTN television network in remarks shown on X.
‘The U.S. government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,’ the post said.
‘Today, I’m announcing that the U.S. government has approved for us filing licenses to start shipping H20s,’ Huang told reporters in Beijing. He noted that half of the world’s AI researchers are in China.
‘It’s so innovative and dynamic here in China that it’s really important that American companies are able to compete and serve the market here in China,’ he said.”
NVIDIA’s H20 chip, designed for inference tasks rather than training, is the most powerful chip that can be sold to China based on existing export controls. Based on the amount of order front-running conducted by Chinese firms in 1Q25, ahead of possible sales ban, the H20 chip is in high demand.
This is a good-sized win for NVIDIA. Huang appears to have played the back-and-forth political game very well. China represents about 15% of NVIDIA’s overall business which isn’t that much lower than the percentage that China represents of Apple’s business.
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