U.S. President Donald Trump’s green light for Nvidia to sell H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips in China signals a calculated shift to export older technology, according to analysts who see the move as aiming to fortify the U.S. market share while dampening China’s urgency for self-reliance. But some predict an ongoing policy tug of war in the U.S. between advocates of the relaxation and those who prefer continued tight restrictions on hi-tech goods shipped to China.
Trump said that the U.S. would permit Nvidia to ship its H200 chips to approved customers in China, under conditions allowing for continued strong national security, and that 25% would be “paid” to the U.S. The policy will apply to other chipmakers, such as AMD and Intel, but excludes Nvidia’s cutting-edge Blackwell and Rubin chip series. The decision “marks a return to the ‘sliding scale’ approach”, which serves the purpose of exporting older-generation U.S. technology to reduce incentives for Chinese domestic innovation while maintaining American dominance, according to Chim Lee, Senior Analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) market research firm.
Some analysts see Trump’s move as further easing trade tensions following high-level talks in October, and there are expectations that the U.S. will still hold back its most advanced technology while Chinese buyers buy reserves of whatever AI chips are allowed. “Assuming the Chinese government is OK with the imports, the return of U.S.-designed AI chips in the Chinese market could trigger yet another wave of stockpiling,” Lee said, noting that the Chinese technology sector previously stockpiled in anticipation of the Trump administration’s intensified chip controls. While the H200 may be suitable for model training, its limitations make it less likely to be deployed for advanced inference – the crucial state after an AI model is trained. “The H200 is not a cutting-edge chip, but it is nonetheless an important tool in terms of policy,” said Charles Chang, Finance Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai. “It’s a signal Trump realizes he needs to trade. His first six months were more of a posturing exercise.”
Gavekal Dragonomics noted before Trump’s H200 clearance that accumulating “evidence” suggests that the U.S. President wants “to move from confrontation with China to conciliation” and that “fighting a losing trade war can only harm him in the midterm elections of 2026”. China is likely to limit purchases of H200 chips to sustain its tech self-sufficiency drive but may boost imports of other U.S. goods, predicted Chen Zhiwu, Chair Professor of Finance at the University of Hong Kong. “This would help stabilize China-U.S. trade relations and make it likely that China would purchase at least a major portion of agricultural products from American farmers,” Chen said. A strong demand exists for the H200 from China’s AI developers because the Nvidia graphics processing unit (GPU) still outperformed domestic AI chips, especially in terms of computing power and memory bandwidth on a single-card basis, the South China Morning Post reports.
