US government considers relaxing export restrictions to allow Nvidia to sell H200 AI chips to China amid easing geopolitical tensions.
The Trump administration is reviewing whether to allow Nvidia Corp to sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, signaling a potential shift toward friendlier bilateral relations following a trade and tech war truce brokered by President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last month in Busan, South Korea. The US Department of Commerce, which oversees export controls, is considering a change to its current policy barring such sales, though officials noted that plans could change. Nvidia stated that current regulations do not allow the company to offer a competitive AI data center chip in China, ceding that massive market to rapidly growing foreign competitors.
The H200 chip, unveiled two years ago, features more high-bandwidth memory than its predecessor the H100, allowing faster data processing. It is estimated to be twice as powerful as Nvidia's H20 chip, the most advanced AI semiconductor currently legal to export to China after the Trump administration reversed its earlier ban on such sales this year. The shift reflects Trump's approach to China's use of export controls on rare earth minerals; though he threatened new restrictions on tech exports earlier this year, he ultimately rolled them back in most cases.
The possibility of H200 exports has raised concerns among China hawks in Washington, who fear that more advanced AI chips could aid Beijing's military capabilities—the same concerns that prompted the Biden administration to set strict limits on such exports. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whom Trump has described as a "great guy," was among guests at the White House during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman's recent visit, underlining continued high-level engagement with the tech sector. The Department of Commerce last week approved shipments of up to 70,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips, the company's next-generation AI chip, to Saudi Arabia's AI start-up Humain and G42 of the United Arab Emirates.
Separately, Google DeepMind vice president John Jumper, who won the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on artificial intelligence, is leaving the company to join Anthropic PBC. Jumper, a key member of Google's AI coding development team, strains the tech giant's efforts to compete with Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX in building the most powerful AI models. Meanwhile, US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has raised concerns with Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML Holding NV about whether one of its extreme ultraviolet lithography machines may have reached China in violation of export restrictions, though ASML has denied the "unfounded rumors" and stated it enforces controls strictly.
In other developments, Taiwan's state-owned oil supplier CPC Corp announced fuel price cuts of NT$1.0 (US$0.03) per liter for gasoline and NT$0.7 per liter for diesel, reflecting reduced upward pressure on international energy prices following US-Iran ceasefire talks. The announcement ended CPC's 11-week streak of unchanged retail fuel prices amid Middle East military conflicts, after the US and Iran announced plans to sign a memorandum of understanding to extend their ceasefire for 60 days and open the Strait of Hormuz. Additionally, Mega PX Mart Zhonglun store in Taipei's Zhongshan District will close on September 13 after 22 years of business, with more than 160 employees to be assisted in finding new positions, according to parent company Ruentex Development Co spokesman Chen Po-yu, citing high rents and lack of profitability since the store opened in December 2004 as Taiwan's first urban hypermarket in central Taipei.