On December 8, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would allow U.S. AI chip giant Nvidia to ship its H200 AI accelerators to China and select overseas markets, provided that 25% of all H200 revenue from these regions is paid to the U.S. government. Trump said China offered a "positive response" to the proposal, adding that the arrangement would "support American jobs, strengthen U.S. manufacturing, and benefit taxpayers."
He noted that similar terms would be applied to AMD, Intel and "other great American companies."

This follows an earlier deal in August in which Nvidia agreed to surrender 15% of its China revenue from the downgraded H20 chip to regain export approval.

Nvidia Pushes to Reenter a $50 Billion China Market

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly warned that U.S. export curbs are pushing Chinese customers toward domestic suppliers. After China criticized the H20 for security concerns and outdated performance, the chip struggled to gain traction. Huang admitted Nvidia's China data center revenue has fallen to "zero."

Huang estimates China's AI chip market is worth US$50 billion today and could reach US$200 billion by the end of the decade, calling it "a major revenue source we hope to reenter."

H200 Viewed as a Compromise to the Blackwell Ban

While Trump opposes exporting Nvidia's next-generation Blackwell GPUs to China, he is open to allowing the H200—based on the same Hopper architecture as the H20 but with significantly higher performance.

The H200 features 141GB of HBM3e memory and up to twice the performance of the H20. However, exporters expect the U.S. government will still require performance downgrades to satisfy current export rules.

For Chinese AI developers, access to a higher-performance H200 (even a modified version) would accelerate large-model training. But for domestic AI chip vendors, the move increases competitive pressure.

Nvidia Welcomes the Decision

A company spokesperson said Nvidia "appreciates President Trump's decision to allow U.S. chipmakers to compete globally," calling the H200 export plan a "thoughtful balance that supports American jobs and manufacturing."

Policy Debate Intensifies in Washington

Senior Trump administration officials—including the USTR and Treasury Secretary—continue to oppose Blackwell exports. Lawmakers are also pushing the stalled GAIN AI Act, which would require Nvidia and AMD to give U.S. customers priority access before selling advanced AI processors abroad.

Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that allowing H200 sales to China could "significantly strengthen China and weaken America's technological lead."

The H200 began shipping globally in 2024 for training and inference workloads. Any relaxation of export rules would mark the most significant U.S. policy shift since Washington began tightening AI chip controls in 2022.