US President Donald Trump on Sunday said that Nvidia’s advanced Blackwell chip for artificial intelligence (AI) would not be available to “other people,” Reuters reported.
Nvidia dominates the AI chip market and recently hit a $5 trillion market capitalisation.
Since August, questions have arisen over whether Donald Trump would permit shipments of Blackwell chips to China, as he hinted at allowing a scaled-down version of Nvidia’s next-generation advanced GPU chip in China.
Trump’s latest statement to reporters aboard Air Force One indicates his administration’s unwillingness to grant broad overseas access to the valuable chip.
“The new Blackwell that just came out, it’s 10 years ahead of every other chip,” the report quoted Trump, who was going to Washington after a weekend in Florida. “But no, we don’t give that chip to other people,” he said.
The potential sale of Blackwell chips to Chinese companies has faced criticism from China hawks in Washington, who worry that this technology could significantly enhance China’s military power and hasten its AI progress.
Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, who heads the House Select Committee on China, said that selling Blackwell chips to China would be akin to giving Iran weapons-grade uranium.”
Trump suggested he might discuss the chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping before their summit in South Korea last week, but the topic was ultimately not addressed.
Selling less advanced Nvidia chips to China
Earlier, Trump said he would consider a deal that would let Nvidia send its Blackwell chips to China if the company could make them less advanced. “It’s possible I’d make a deal” on a “somewhat enhanced — in a negative way — Blackwell” processor, he said.. “In other words, take 30% to 50% off of it.”
Jensen Huang on China sales
Last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that the chipmaking giant has not sought US export licenses for the Chinese market due to Beijing’s stance on the company.
“They’ve made it very clear that they don’t want Nvidia to be there right now,” he said at an event, and further mentioned that it needed access to China to fund US-based research and development.
Meanwhile, Nvidia announced Friday that it would deliver more than 260,000 Blackwell AI chips to South Korea and several of the country’s largest businesses, including Samsung Electronics.
How will export of Blackwell chips impact US?
The export of these chips will have a direct impact on the US’s AI dominance over China. Experts warn that if Washington permits the export of the B30A (Blackwell) and similar chips from other American companies, China might surpass the US in AI computing power by 2026, the news agency reported, citing experts.
However, if no powerful chips are exported to China next year, the US will have 30 times the AI computing power that China.
Amid concerns over US exports, Chinese regulators promoted increased use of domestic chips. Nonetheless, leading tech firms such as Alibaba and ByteDance argued that their AI development would decline without Nvidia’s chips, risking China’s competitiveness in the tech race with the US.
Key Takeaways
- Trump’s administration is focused on restricting advanced AI chip exports to China to maintain US technological superiority.
- The potential sale of Blackwell chips to China raises significant national security concerns among US lawmakers.
- Chinese tech firms are concerned that without access to Nvidia’s chips, their AI development could stagnate.
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