Trump open to Nvidia selling scaled-back Blackwell to China

[WASHINGTON] US President Donald Trump signalled on Monday (Aug 11) that he’d be open to allowing Nvidia to sell a scaled-back version of its most advanced AI chip to China.

Trump said that he would consider a deal that would allow Nvidia to ship its Blackwell chips to China if the company could design it to be less advanced. “It’s possible I’d make a deal” on a “somewhat enhanced, in a negative way, Blackwell” processor, he said in a briefing with reporters. “In other words, take 30 to 50 per cent off of it.”

Nvidia declined to comment on the president’s remarks. Trump made the assertion about Blackwell while confirming that he’d hammered out a separate, unusual deal with Nvidia that will allow the company to sell its less-advanced H20 AI chip to China if it pays 15 per cent of revenue tied to those shipments to the US government.

Advanced Micro Devices will deliver the same share from MI308 revenues, a source familiar with the situation has said, asking not to be identified discussing internal deliberations.

The revenue-sharing agreement for the H20 chip, and the prospect of yet another one for Nvidia’s Blackwell product, reflects Trump’s consistent effort to engineer a financial payout for America in return for concessions on trade. Such unprecedented arrangements, however, stand to set a precedent for all American companies doing business in the Asian nation and threaten the US government’s national security rationale for export controls, experts said.

Trump did not say exactly when he might negotiate a deal with Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang on the Blackwell chip, but alluded to a possible meeting soon on the prospect: “I think he’s coming to see me again about that, but that will be a unenhanced version of the big one.”

Nvidia’s Blackwell design is at the heart of the most powerful computers that create and run AI software. Those chips are currently too powerful to be sold into China, according to US restrictions.

Nvidia and smaller rival AMD have seen their revenues in China slashed by increasingly tight US government restrictions on AI chip exports. While the Trump administration has begun granting permits for some chips to China, those products are older and only equivalent to domestic Chinese offerings, casting doubt on their attractiveness in that market.

A newer, better offering might help promote Nvidia’s standing with Chinese customers if it can get sign-off from the administration.

When the US tightened restrictions in April, Nvidia said that it would work on another chip for the China market and would seek permission to export that one. It cautioned that the older Hopper design, the basis of the H20 chip being sent to China only, could no longer be reduced in capabilities. BLOOMBERG