Trump opens door to Nvidia Blackwell China sales, talks 15% ‘little deal’ revenue share
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The news: US President Donald Trump said he would consider allowing Nvidia to sell a scaled-back version of its most advanced Blackwell AI chip to China, with performance reduced by 30–50%.
Speaking at a press conference from the White House, Trump also described the unprecedented agreement he reached with Nvidia and AMD, saying he had asked the companies to give the US government a 20% share of revenue from sales of their less-advanced AI chips in China.
What they said: Trump said he told the companies “I said, listen I want 20% if I’m going to approve this for you, for the country, for our country, for the US. I don’t want it myself,” he said.
Trump then said Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang had asked if he could lower the take to 15%.
“So we negotiated a little deal, so he’s selling essentially an old chip. Huawei has a similar chip, a chip that does the same thing,” Trump said.
“And I said if I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something as I’m giving you a release. I released them only from the H20. Now, on the Blackwell, I think he’s coming to see me again about that. But that would be an unenhanced version of the big one. Like, I don’t know if you know it. We sill sometimes sell fighter jets to a country and we’ll give them 20% less than we have.”
The context: The current export licences cover Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308 chips. Nvidia’s H20, based on older Hopper architecture, was cleared last month for shipment to China after an April sales halt, though Trump called it obsolete. It was designed to comply with Biden-era export controls and is less powerful than US versions.
An unnamed US official told Reuters the sale of H20 and equivalent chips does not compromise national security, but critics and experts warned of legal questions, national security implications and the precedent it sets.
The Financial Times reported some national security officials in the Trump administration were considering resigning “over the signals” Trump has sent in recent days about allowing China to get advanced American tech.
The numbers: US restrictions have significantly reduced Nvidia and AMD’s China revenues. Nvidia generated USD17 billion from China in its last fiscal year, while AMD reported USD6.2 billion in 2024.
The sources: The White House, The Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg
