In a significant decision for the tech industry, Nvidia plans to restart selling its H20 AI chips to China after receiving encouraging signals from the U.S. government. The decision ends months of ambiguity, as the Trump administration had suspended such sales in April over fears of advanced chip exports to China.
The H20 GPU was developed to comply with U.S. export controls and to prevent from breaking related restrictions on powerful chips. But even those precautionary plans were not enough to keep the product on shelves earlier this year.
Nvidia declared on Monday that it had started submitting applications to start selling again. The U.S. government has provided NVIDIA with written assurances that the export license applications for the deal will be approved and that the company will be able to close that deal,” the company said in a statement.
The breakthrough comes at the end of an important week for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who met with former President Donald Trump and spoke with Chinese government and industry leaders. Alongside the reveal came the news of a brand new ‘fully compliant’ RTX Pro GPU catering to professional markets from Nvidia.
Nvidia Stock Reacts
Nvidia stock rose 4.5% early Tuesday in response to the news, rebounding somewhat from a slight 0.5% drop Monday. The phrase “it is a $4 trillion company” captures the size of the company’s market capitalization and its undeniable dominance in AI hardware.
Other chip stocks also rallied in response. AMD rose 5.3 percent to $154.04, breaking above a resistance mark of $147.75. To some degree it is seen as a positive signal to AMD’s own fortunes in the China market that Nvidia’s H20 clearance was granted.
Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC) — it makes chips for Nvidia and AMD — added 2.2% ahead of its Q2 earnings on Thursday. Super Micro Computer (SMCI), an AI server maker and Nvidia partner, was also up 3.9%.
Being re-admitted to the Chinese market may substantially boost the larger semiconductor ecosystem and revitalize U.S.-China tech collaboration in an overwatched and restricted environment.
