US demands cut of Nvidia sales in order to ship AI chips to China

The Trump medication has ordered Nvidia and AMD to wage the national authorities a 15 percent chopped of their AI spot income gross to China, according to reports from The New York Times and The Financial Times. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reportedly reached an statement with President Donald Trump conscionable days earlier the Commerce Department granted the companies licenses to merchantability AI chips.

President Trump confirmed reports of the woody during a property league connected Monday, saying helium primitively asked for a 20 percent chopped but lowered it to 15 percent aft negotiations with Huang. “I said, ‘Listen, I privation 20 percent if I’m going to o.k. this for you, for the country,’” Trump said. “And helium [Huang] said, ‘Would you marque it 15?’ So we negociate a small deal.”

The approved shipments see Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308, some of which are stripped-down versions of their AI-focused GPUs, designed to comply with US export rules to China. After the Trump medication put restrictions connected AI spot income to China successful April, some companies confirmed past period that they would soon resume shipments erstwhile they received licenses. Nvidia’s H20 spot came nether occurrence past week aft the Chinese authorities raised concerns that its chips could have a authorities “backdoor.”

Trump said the H20 spot is an “old spot that China already has,” adding that helium would see letting Nvidia merchantability its Blackwell spot to China if the institution lowers its show by “30 to 50 percent.“

The Trump administration’s woody with Nvidia and AMD could nett the US authorities $2 cardinal per year, according to the New York Times. The Times calls the statement “highly unusual,” a moving taxable for an medication that’s taken successful wealth from meme coin dinners, lawsuits against universities, shakedowns of TV networks, and a flood of unpredictable tariffs. Last week, Trump threatened to enforce a 100 percent tariff connected semiconductors unless companies scope a woody to bring manufacturing to the US.

President Trump said earlier this twelvemonth that helium weighed breaking up Nvidia earlier Huang embarked on a run of flattery, which ended up besides winning the removal of AI spot export limits. Trump has inserted himself into different large concern dealings successful the sanction of nationalist security, proposing a associated venture that would springiness the US authorities 50 percent ownership of TikTok and precocious demanding the resignation of Intel’s caller CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, implicit his connections to China.

Update, August 11th: Added confirmation from Trump.