Trump administration backs off Nvidia’s H20 chip crackdown after Mar-a-Lago dinner

The Trump administration has reversed course on plans to restrict exports of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips to China after CEO Jensen Huang attended a Mar-a-Lago dinner last week, NPR reported.

The planned American export controls on the chips — the most advanced AI processor legally available in China under US export controls — had been in the works for months, NPR reported, citing two sources, and were ready to be implemented as soon as this week.

The change in plans came after Nvidia promised the Trump administration new US investments in AI data centers, the NPR report said.
The White House and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was considering tightening restrictions on the AI leader’s sales of its H20 chips designed for the China market, Reuters had reported in January.

The idea to restrict shipments of those chips to China has been under consideration since Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration.

In February, Reuters exclusively reported a surge in orders for the H20, driven by booming demand for Chinese startup DeepSeek’s low-cost AI models.

Chinese companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings, have placed at least $16 billion in orders for Nvidia’s H20 server chips in the first three months of the year, the Information reported last week.

Two US lawmakers, Republican John Moolenaar and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, called for more restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips in late January. Reuters