Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warns US again: Calls selling Al chips to China ‘crazy’ and ‘big mistake’
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has once again questioned the Trump administration’s trade policy, slamming the recent approval of selling Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chip sales to China. He called it a blunder with “incredible national security implications”.“I think this is crazy. It’s a bit like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea. It would be a big mistake to ship these chips,” Amodei said at Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum.
What is Trump administration’s new trade policy with China
Anthropic CEO’s warning comes weeks after President Donald Trump eased the bans on advanced AI chip exports, and approved the sale of AI chips to Beijing. This policy shift is a major victory for Nvidia, which has argued that continued bans merely incentivise China to develop its own domestic alternatives. The chipmaker also claimed that China making their own chips will potentially lock American firms out of the world’s second-largest economy permanently.Under the new guidelines, Nvidia’s H200 will become the most advanced AI chip legally available to Chinese customers. However, multiple reports claim that China has asked its customs officials that Nvidia’s high-end chips are not allowed in the mainland.Meanwhile, AMD is reportedly seeking similar clearance for MI325X to compete in the Chinese market. It is to be noted that Nvidia’s Blackwell and upcoming Vera Rubin architectures will remain strictly restricted for US and allied use.
Amodei previously said allowing Nvidia chip sales to China is ‘Mortgaging our future’
In September, Amodei’s alarmed the US government that American dominance in semiconductor technology is the nation’s final strategic leverage over China and that the AI chip embargo was the one area where Washington held a decisive advantage.“It is mortgaging our future as a country to sell these chips to China,” Amodei warned, describing the policy shift as “the single most disastrous national security decision made in this term.”“This could control the fate of nations. This could control the future of freedom and democracy,” Amodei noted during the Axios AI+ DC Summit.
