Nvidia said Tuesday that it hopes to resume sales of its H20 general processing units to China, in a major win for the company that has suffered from U.S. export curbs.
The U.S. government in April told Nvidia it would require a license to sell the chips to China, the company said in a filing, effectively halting their sales. The H20 chips had been designed specifically to bypass earlier export controls on Beijing.
“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in recent months has ramped up his lobbying against export controls, arguing that they inhibited American tech leadership. In May, Huang said chip restrictions had already cut Nvidia’s China market share nearly in half.
The potential change in U.S. stance follows a meeting between Huang and U.S. President Donald Trump last week. During the talks, Huang had reaffirmed Nvidia’s support for the administration’s job creation and onshoring efforts, as well as the aim for America to lead in global AI, the company said.
Washington and Beijing last month agreed to a preliminary trade framework that allowed relaxing rare-earth export controls by China and easing of tech export curbs by the U.S.
Huang also announced a new “fully compliant” GPU — RTX PRO — saying it was ideal for smart factories and logistics. It was not clear if the reference was to the GPU being compliant with guidelines for exports to China.
Since May, reports had indicated that Nvidia was working on a new AI chip for the China market, which would be less advanced than the H20.
However, the potential resumption of H20 chips to China comes as a surprise, Ray Wang, research director of semiconductors, supply chain and emerging technology at Futurum Group, told CNBC.
“The lifting of the H20 ban marks a significant and positive development for Nvidia, which will enable the company to reinforce its leadership in China,” Wang said.
“The resumption of H20 shipments — alongside the upcoming rollout of new export control-compliant AI chips for the Chinese market — should serve as a fresh growth catalyst in the coming quarters,” he added.
Nvidia shares were up 4.5% on trading platform Robinhood as of 12:20 a.m. ET.
On Tuesday, Nvidia also confirmed that Huang was in China and had met government and industry officials to discuss the benefits of AI and ways for researchers to advance safe and secure AI.
When the export controls on the H20 chip set in in April, some chip experts had expected it to be a boon for local Nvidia alternatives such as Huawei.
However, while China’s AI chip environment has been making progress, it remains behind the capabilities of Nvidia and chip foundries like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Speaking to CNBC’s “The China Connection” on Tuesday, Louise Loo, lead economist for China at Oxford Economics, said a reversal of the H20 export controls would buy Chinese manufacturers more time as they await advancements in China’s indigenous technology.
“We know from from our conversations with clients and market participants, that manufacturers in China are preferring these Nvidia chips,” she added.