Trump Considers Allowing NVIDIA to Sell Downgraded Blackwell Chips to China
Trump
According to Bloomberg, on Monday, US President Trump indicated that he is willing to consider allowing NVIDIA Corporation to sell its most advanced AI chip, Blackwell, to China in a downgraded version.
Trump stated that if NVIDIA can design the Blackwell chip not so advanced, he will consider reaching an agreement with the company to export the chip to China.
"I may reach such an agreement, which would involve some negative modification of the Blackwell processor. In other words, reducing its performance by 30% to 50%." he said at a press conference.
Trump made this statement during confirmation of another unusual agreement between the US government and NVIDIA regarding the export of H20 AI chips to China. According to the agreement, NVIDIA needs to remit 15% of its revenue from selling these chips to the US government. A source revealed that AMD will also remit 15% of its revenue from selling MI308 chips to the US government.
Trump did not specify when he would discuss this matter with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, but hinted that a meeting may take place soon.
"I think he will come talk to me about this again, but it will be for an unenhanced version of the large chip." Trump said.
The NVIDIA Blackwell architecture is currently used in creating and running AI software's most powerful computer core. According to US export restrictions, these chips are currently too advanced to be exported to China.
As of the time of writing, NVIDIA has refused to comment on Trump's remarks (Author/Arrow Rain).