Donald Trump Considers Stricter Restrictions On Nvidia Chip Sales To China

Nvidia is ready to cooperate with the US government in developing policies related to AI. (photo; x @nvidia)

JAKARTA - The administration of US President Donald Trump is considering tightening restrictions on the sale of Nvidia's H20 chip specifically designed for the Chinese market. This was said by three sources familiar with the discussion.

Discussions on restrictions on the shipment of chips to China are still in the early stages among Trump's government officials. However, this idea has actually been considered since the era of the previous Democratic President Joe Biden's administration.

Nvidia's H20 chip is designed to comply with US export rules that have been implemented since Biden's time, with the ability to run artificial intelligence (AI) software. However, despite restrictions on AI chip exports to China, some products such as H20 can still be shipped legally.

The White House has not yet responded to this policy plan. Meanwhile, in a statement, Nvidia stated that it is ready to cooperate with the US government in developing policies related to AI.

After this report was first published by Bloomberg, Nvidia's shares, which had previously experienced a decline, have weakened.

The growing concern that China is starting to catch up with the US in AI development. Last week, Chinese technology company DeepSeek launched a free AI assistant that it claims can operate with much less data and much lower costs than rival AI models, potentially a turning point in AI investment scale.

"This topic has been discussed for more than half a year at the top official level," said Lennart Heim, a researcher from RAND. He added that further restrictions on AI chips to China have been recommended since the Biden administration.

The Biden administration has previously implemented various AI chip export restrictions to China and restricted its shipments to a number of other countries. However, until now, some chips such as Nvidia H20 can still be legally shipped to China.