Jensen Huang Says China Will Eventually Open Its AI Chip Market... Uncertainty Remains Over H200 Sales

\r\n[The Financial News] Even though the recent U.S.-China summit produced no clear results, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA Corporation, expressed an optimistic outlook for exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China.
In an interview with a U.S. media outlet on the 18th (local time), Huang said, "The Chinese government has to decide how much it wants to protect its domestic market," adding, "My view is that the market will open over time."
He visited China as part of the business delegation accompanying U.S. President Donald Trump on his trip for the recent U.S.-China summit. Huang explained that he did not directly discuss sales of the AI chip, the NVIDIA H200 GPU, with Chinese officials. He added, "President Trump had several conversations with Chinese leaders," and said, "I am waiting to see what decision both sides will make."
In connection with this, Trump previously said after returning from his China visit that the H200 chip issue had been discussed and that he believed "there could be some progress," but he did not provide details. Jamieson Greer, the U.S. Trade Representative, had also said in a media interview at the time that "discussions on semiconductor export controls were not a major topic of the U.S.-China summit."
\r\n\r\nMeanwhile, according to The Information, Lenovo Group Ltd. told employees in an internal memo that there had been no changes to licenses or policies related to the chip since March, when the United States allowed exports of the H200 chip to China.
Although the U.S. eased export restrictions, Chinese companies still cannot buy the H200 chip because of China’s own regulations, leaving NVIDIA Corporation with continued difficulties in sales to China.
Huang was initially reported not to have been included in Trump's delegation for the China trip, but he joined the group in Alaska on the 12th, the refueling stop for Trump's private jet en route to China.
At the time, Huang's addition was seen as a green light for H200 chip sales to China, sending NVIDIA's stock sharply higher and briefly lifting its market capitalization to as much as $5.7 trillion intraday. However, shares fell again after the summit ended without visible results. NVIDIA's market capitalization stood at $5.38 trillion on the day.
whywani@fnnews.com Hong Chaewan Reporter