NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang meets President Trump amid discussions of implementing kill switches on AI GPUs exported to China, enabling runtime disablement.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump at the White House earlier today, according to CNBC's Kristina Partsinevelos. The meeting comes after NVIDIA, the most valuable company in the world, published a blog post responding against kill switches in its GPUs. The company had previously announced that it expected the Trump administration to grant China AI GPU export licenses. While the content of Huang's conversation with Trump remains unclear, it could center on license approvals and kill switches within the GPUs themselves.
The Trump administration has decided to process China AI GPU licenses, though it remains uncertain whether NVIDIA has begun receiving them. AMD, NVIDIA's smaller rival, has yet to receive licenses for chips restricted from sale to China earlier this year—a fact confirmed by CEO Lisa Su in an interview today. As NVIDIA awaits license approval, backdoors in its GPUs may serve as a key bargaining point as the company seeks to secure approval for Chinese products.
Huang's White House visit coincides with Apple CEO Tim Cook's expected presence to announce a $600 billion investment package in the US, representing an addition of $100 billion to the company's earlier investment. Apple's shares rose 6% on the announcement. The company had faced friction with the Trump administration over its efforts to shift production to India from China, occurring as the US government intensified pressure on India to stop purchasing Russian oil. Investor optimism about a thaw in Apple's government relations drove the share gains.
CNBC spotted Huang at the White House as cameras documented Cook's arrival, leaving his purpose for the presidential meeting uncertain. However, given the current environment surrounding China GPUs, potential backdoors, and license approvals, these topics likely feature on the agenda. NVIDIA has already announced a $500 billion AI data center infrastructure investment in the US, making additional investment announcements unlikely. Also spotted at the White House today were Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Bank of America's Brian Moynihan, with Cook expected to speak around 4:30pm ET.