Huang on China chips

Jensen Huang said this month that blocking more Nvidia artificial intelligence chips from China could backfire by pushing Chinese firms onto Huawei hardware instead. (dwarkesh.com) (scmp.com) In a podcast posted April 15, Huang said it would be “a horrible outcome” for the United States if China’s DeepSeek trained or ran leading models on Huawei chips. He argued that China already has “abundant energy” and a large pool of researchers, so export controls alone will not stop its artificial intelligence work. (dwarkesh.com) (scmp.com) The argument comes after years of tighter U.S. controls on advanced semiconductors for China, starting with broad restrictions in October 2022 and expanding through 2023 and 2024. On May 13, 2025, the Commerce Department rescinded the Biden-era Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule but said it was also strengthening chip-related export controls and warning companies about specific Huawei Ascend chips. (congress.gov) (bis.gov) At stake is more than one company’s sales. Advanced graphics chips are the engines that train and run large artificial intelligence models, and Washington has tried to keep the fastest versions out of China while preserving a U.S. lead in computing. (congress.gov) Huang’s case is that a closed market can create a protected home market for Chinese substitutes. In the April 15 interview, he said abandoning China is a “loser mentality” and argued that U.S. platforms should compete there so developers build on American technology. (dwarkesh.com) Nvidia has a direct financial stake in that outcome. In its annual report for the fiscal year ended January 26, 2025, the company said data center revenue in China grew but remained “well below” the share it had before the October 2023 export controls. (sec.gov) (publicnow.com) U.S. officials and many China hawks make the opposite case. A Congressional Research Service report published September 19, 2025, said the controls are meant to slow China’s ability to build advanced chips and artificial intelligence systems, especially given Beijing’s push for a self-sufficient semiconductor sector and military-civil fusion strategy. (congress.gov) That leaves the policy fight where Huang put it: whether denying China the best American chips slows Chinese artificial intelligence, or whether it speeds up the shift to Chinese hardware and software. His warning was that the second outcome would leave the United States with less influence over the market it is trying to lead. (dwarkesh.com) (congress.gov)