Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang plans trip to China, this time to …
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is reportedly planning to visit China in late January. This visit by the chip giant’s boss may be seen as the company works to regain access to a key market for its artificial intelligence chips, a report claims. A Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the plans, said Huang will attend company events ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays and is expected to visit Beijing. However, the report didn’t specify whether he would meet with senior Chinese officials during the trip.The visit comes as Nvidia seeks to reopen the Chinese market, which US export controls on advanced AI chips have restricted. Huang’s schedule could still change depending on whether planned meetings are confirmed, the report noted, citing the person.This follows last week’s decision by the Trump administration to allow Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to China. The company was expected to restart shipments despite pushback from Washington opponents of doing business with China. However, soon after the US’s decision, Chinese customs officials reportedly said the H200 chips were not allowed into the country.While the Trump administration recently approved the H200 with a 25% tariff, China’s General Administration of Customs executed its own counter-strategy. Last week, reports said customs officers were told that Nvidia H200 chips were not allowed in the country.“The wording from the officials is so severe that it is basically a ban for now,” Reuters reported last week. The move caught Nvidia off guard, particularly as the company had pushed hard to sell its AI chips in China and the first batches of H200 chips had already arrived in Hong Kong that week.
Nvidia’s Chinese suppliers halt chip production after customs decision
Days after Chinese customs officials blocked the newly approved processors from entering mainland China, suppliers of key components for the AI chip reportedly halted production lines.A recent Financial Times report, citing two people with knowledge of the matter, said that manufacturers of essential chip parts, including printed circuit boards (PCBs) needed to package H200 chips, paused operations to avoid building up unsold inventory.Meanwhile, multiple reports said that while tech companies like Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent wanted to buy the H200 for its performance, the Chinese government pressured them to prioritise domestic alternatives, such as Huawei’s Ascend chips, and avoid using them for purposes that could threaten national security.According to the FT report, despite having placed orders for over 2 million H200 units, some Chinese customers were cancelling their orders due to the uncertainty.
