SANTA CLARA (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Department of Commerce is gearing up to allow Nvidia to send its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, according to a report from Semafor.
This move could reopen a significant market for Nvidia, despite ongoing efforts from lawmakers to limit such exports. It's worth noting that this approval would only be for H200 units that are approximately 18 months old. They are significantly more powerful than the older H20 chips Nvidia made for China, but still not as advanced as what the company has rolled out more recently.
Nvidia appears to be in favor of this decision, arguing that it helps support jobs in the U.S. and keeps the American semiconductor industry competitive.
This news comes after comments from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who mentioned last week that President Donald Trump would ultimately decide on these exports.
Allowing shipments of the H200 chips goes against the rising bipartisan worries in Congress. Senators Pete Ricketts and Chris Coons introduced the Secure and Feasible Exports Chips Act on December 4, aiming to block export licenses for cutting-edge AI chips to China for a period of 30 months. So far, there's no date for a vote.
This whole situation comes after a few months of shifting policies from the Trump administration. Back in April, they put licensing requirements on AI chip exports, but then they reversed a rule from the Biden administration just a month later.
By the summer, officials hinted that they might permit exports if the U.S. government could get 15 percent of the revenue from chip sales headed to China, effectively using the technology as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations.
Meanwhile, the situation with the Chinese market has already changed. In September, China's Cyberspace Administration prohibited local companies from buying Nvidia chips, which has pushed them toward using less powerful homegrown alternatives from Alibaba and Huawei.
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