Give back: Washington lifted restrictions on the supply of AI chips to China
The 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump, authorized the supply of Nvidia A chips to China. Major technology companies have already approached the American semiconductor manufacturer to purchase the necessary components for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The new H200 chips are almost six times more powerful than the previous H20s, which can now be legally imported into China. Until recently, such developments remained one of Washington's levers of pressure on Beijing, but this scheme gradually began to lose force. Why the US ultimatums are no longer relevant for China, why Trump needed to lift restrictions and what awaits the American AI industry in the future — in the Izvestia article.
Donald Trump promised to remove export controls from Nvidia chips: what is known
The largest Chinese technology companies, ByteDance and Alibaba Group, have turned to semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia to purchase powerful H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips. This happened after US President Donald Trump promised to lift export controls and allowed the company to supply the development to trusted customers from China and other countries.
"I have informed Chinese President Xi Jinping that the United States will allow Nvidia to supply its H200 to trusted customers in China and other countries on terms that ensure the preservation of national security at a high level," the American leader wrote on his Truth Social network.
Donald Trump clarified that the US government will receive 25% of the supply of chips. At the same time, Nvidia's next-generation developments such as Blackwell (B200) and Rubin are not included in the deal.
The Reuters news agency, citing data from the Institute for Progress (IFP) analytical center, reported that the H200 chip is almost six times more powerful than the H20 semiconductor, which can now be legally exported to China. Chinese companies are interested in this development, as its AI training capabilities currently have no analogues among technologies. The H200 chip is best suited to endow a machine with the ability to make precise and capacious "logical conclusions." Previously, elite "firms and universities", as well as organizations associated with the armed forces of the state, purchased them "through the channels of the "gray" market."
Sources familiar with Nvidia's supply chain told Reuters that the H200 chips are being produced in limited numbers as the company focuses on advanced Blackwell models and upcoming Rubins. The agency writes that the B200, already used by American companies, is 1.5 times more efficient than the H200 chips for training artificial intelligence and five times more efficient when working with logical AI models. They cannot be supplied to China yet, but it is quite possible that this measure will be lifted soon.
Nvidia praised the Trump cabinet's decision, noting that it "provides a thoughtful balance that is beneficial to America." The company's CEO, Jensen Huang, has repeatedly called for the supply of AI chips to China. According to him, maintaining China's dependence on components makes the situation better for the United States. The share of American technology in the Chinese market has dropped from 95% in 2022 to almost zero. In early November, Reuters also wrote that Beijing recommended that local organizations refrain from purchasing developments in the United States in order to stimulate domestic production.
Continuation of the war or a gesture of goodwill
In April 2025, Donald Trump began imposing import duties on counterparty countries. These measures were supposed to facilitate the relocation of production facilities to the United States in order to stabilize the trade balance. The main target was China, one of the largest trading partners of the United States.
In April, tariffs on Chinese imports reached 125%, and together with the "base" duty amounted to 145%. At that time, manufacturers of goods — from petrochemicals to souvenirs — began to move enterprises back to the United States en masse. However, despite all efforts, real GDP growth in the country in 2025 turned out to be 0.5% lower than projected. China, on the contrary, increased its trade surplus to $1.076 trillion and again set a world record — last year this figure was only approaching $1 trillion.
By the end of October, Donald Trump had to reduce tariffs to a "basic" 20%. This happened because, in response to American attacks, China restricted the purchase of soybeans and the export of rare earth metals, the most important material for the United States industry.
Soybean farmers suffered the most from the tariff policy of the 47th President of the United States. As a result of the reduction in exports to China, many farms went bankrupt and urgently began to replace this crop with others. Recently, the American leader announced the allocation of assistance to agricultural enterprises in the amount of $ 12 billion. China increased its capital by reducing purchases of goods from other countries, continued to sell three times more products to Americans than it imports itself, and also increased exports to Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America and Europe.
As for rare earth metals, Washington needs them for almost the entire industry in the United States: from the automotive industry to the development of the military-industrial complex (MIC). Since China controls 90% of the global market, and the American military-industrial complex uses about 80,000 components made from Chinese raw materials, the White House would sooner or later have to reduce tariffs.
Industrial expert Leonid Khazanov told Izvestia about the situation related to rare earth metals in the United States. Despite the fact that raw materials are mined in the country, the volumes of "rare earths" obtained from it are extremely small and do not meet the needs of American corporations. Individual companies, of course, have stocked up on materials for about a year in advance, but warehouses can become empty at any moment.
— In the foreseeable future, the United States will not be able to increase metal production, despite the existence of government support measures — they have run into technological difficulties, and they will not be able to solve them yet. In fact, China keeps the United States on a "rare earth leash," now pulling it, now loosening it and thus knocking out preferences for itself, the expert explained.
AI development in the USA and China
Until recently, chips were one of the few levers of US pressure on China. The race for primacy in the field of artificial intelligence played a key role here. Experts believe that obtaining advanced accelerators by Chinese AI startups in the future will cause trouble for the American development industry.
AI companies in the United States generate negligible profits, although their capitalization is estimated at a trillion dollars. Malek Dudakov, an American political scientist, argues that a sharp increase in the number of data centers in the United States has also led to an increase in electricity prices. Despite the high competition, Washington wants to remain a monopolist in the chip market in China. Its purpose is to hinder the development of Chinese domestic technologies that may be better than American ones.
According to the expert, the situation with chips plays into the hands of Chinese companies. Previously, the same DeepSeek showed better results than, for example, ChatGPT, working with older technologies. The American company's market share recently dropped from 87% to 72%. While the Trump cabinet sought to make artificial intelligence the main engine of economic growth and global leadership of the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping managed to overtake it.
— Competition will escalate, especially since the United States has problems with the development of AI. The main one is the lack of capacity of power plants. The cost of electricity is rising in many states as there are many new data centers. There are no such problems in China due to the large surplus of electricity. I think that China will have the advantages in the artificial intelligence race, and the United States is unlikely to be able to maintain its current leading position in the long term," the expert concluded.
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