Trump to meet with Nvidia CEO over AI chip sales to China

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will meet with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang at the White House on Friday, a White House official said, following reports the Trump administration is studying new ways to restrict AI chip sales to China.

Additional details were not immediately available.

The meeting comes as the US is set to further restrict AI chip exports with new rules coming into effect this spring, to keep advanced computing power in the United States and among its allies, while looking for more ways to block China’s access.

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At the same time, worries are mounting that China is catching up to the United States in AI development. China’s DeepSeek last week launched a free assistant it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of US models.

Within days, it became the most downloaded app in Apple’s App Store and stirred concerns about the United States’ lead in AI, sparking a rout that wiped around $1 trillion off US technology stocks. At one point, shares of Nvidia, a top producer of AI chips, fell 17 per cent.

The Trump administration is considering tightening restrictions on artificial intelligence leader Nvidia’s sales of its H20 chips designed for the China market, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday.

Conversations to restrict shipments of those chips to China are in early stages among Trump officials, the sources said, adding that the idea has been under consideration since Democratic former President Joe Biden’s administration. H20 chips can be used to run AI software and were designed to comply with existing US curbs on shipments to China implemented by Biden.

Two US lawmakers are also calling for more restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chips.

Republican John Moolenaar and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, who lead the House of Representatives Select Committee on China, asked for the move as part of a Commerce and State Department-led review ordered by Trump to scrutinize the US export control system in light of “developments involving strategic adversaries.”

Reuters reported on Thursday that the US Commerce Department is looking into whether DeepSeek has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, a person familiar with the matter said.