The Trump administration has ordered Nvidia and AMD to pay the federal authorities a 15 % lower of their AI chip gross sales income to China, in keeping with reviews from The New York Occasions and The Monetary Occasions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reportedly reached an settlement with President Donald Trump simply days earlier than the Commerce Division granted the businesses licenses to promote AI chips.
President Trump confirmed reviews of the deal throughout a press convention on Monday, saying he initially requested for a 20 % lower however lowered it to fifteen % after negotiations with Huang. “I mentioned, ‘Pay attention, I need 20 % if I’m going to approve this for you, for the nation,’” Trump mentioned. “And he [Huang] mentioned, ‘Would you make it 15?’ So we negotiate slightly deal.”
The accepted shipments embrace Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308, each of that are stripped-down variations of their AI-focused GPUs, designed to adjust to US export guidelines to China. After the Trump administration put restrictions on AI chip gross sales to China in April, each firms confirmed final month that they might quickly resume shipments as soon as they acquired licenses. Nvidia’s H20 chip got here underneath fireplace final week after the Chinese language authorities raised issues that its chips may have a authorities “backdoor.”
Trump mentioned the H20 chip is an “outdated chip that China already has,” including that he would take into account letting Nvidia promote its Blackwell chip to China if the corporate lowers its efficiency by “30 to 50 %.“
President Trump mentioned earlier this 12 months that he weighed breaking apart Nvidia earlier than Huang launched into a marketing campaign of flattery, which ended up additionally profitable the removing of AI chip export limits. Trump has inserted himself into different main enterprise dealings within the identify of nationwide safety, proposing a three way partnership that will give the US authorities 50 % possession of TikTok and just lately demanding the resignation of Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, over his connections to China.
Replace, August eleventh: Added affirmation from Trump.
