U.S. President Donald Trump has stated that Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips will be reserved for U.S. companies and will not be sold to China or other countries, according to a Reuters report.
In a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday and in separate comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only U.S. customers should have access to the top-tier Blackwell chips from Nvidia. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” Trump told CBS, later adding, “We don’t give (the Blackwell) chip to other people.”
The remarks suggest a potential tightening of export restrictions on cutting-edge American AI technology, possibly barring even allies from the most sophisticated semiconductors. This stance appears to conflict with the administration’s own AI blueprint from July, which aimed to expand AI exports to allies. It also comes just one week after Nvidia announced a major deal to supply over 260,000 Blackwell AI chips to South Korea and its largest companies, including Samsung Electronics.
Regarding China, Trump told CBS he would not permit the sale of the most advanced Blackwell chips to Chinese firms, but he did not explicitly rule out a less capable version. “We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced,” he said.
The possibility of any version of the Blackwell chip being sold to China has drawn sharp criticism from China hawks in Washington. Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, stated such a move “would be akin (to) giving Iran weapons-grade uranium.”
Trump had previously hinted he might discuss the chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping at their summit in South Korea last week, but he confirmed the topic did not come up. Separately, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last week that the company has not sought U.Next, U.S. export licenses for the Chinese market, stating that Beijing has “made it very clear that they don’t want Nvidia to be there right now.”
