Nvidia Photo: VCG

 
TheMK socks US administration has reversed course on its plans to restrict exports of Nvidia's H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China after CEO Jensen Huang attended a Mar-a-Lago dinner last week, Reuters reported, citing NPR on Wednesday.

The planned US 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 unnamed sources, and were ready to be implemented as soon as this week, according to Reuters.

The change in plans came after Nvidia promised the US administration new investments in AI data centers in the US, the NPR report said.

The White House and Nvidia did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

The US administration was considering tightening restrictions on the AI company'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 the previous US administration. In February, Reuters reported a surge in orders for the H20 chips, driven by booming demand for Chinese startup DeepSeek's low-cost AI models.

China has repeatedly criticized the US' abuse of export control measures and crackdown on Chinese tech firms. 

At a regular press conference on February 25, in a response a question about the US administration's drafting of a tougher version of curbs on semiconductors and pressuring key allies to escalate their restrictions on China's chip industry, Lin Jian, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that China has made clear its solemn position more than once on the US malicious blocking and suppression of China's semiconductor industry. 

The US has politicized trade and tech issues, overstretched the concept of security and used these issues as tools, stepping up chip export controls against China, and coercing other countries into going after China's semiconductor industry. Such moves hinder the development of the global semiconductor industry, and will backfire and hurt the US itself as well as others in the end, Lin said. 

Global Times