Nvidia’s Huang plans to visit China this month
Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang is planning a trip to China in late January as he seeks to reopen a vital market for the company’s artificial intelligence chips.
According to a source familiar with the matter, Huang will attend company events ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays, News.Az reports, citing Bloomberg.
He is also expected to visit Beijing, though it is unclear whether he will meet with senior Chinese officials, the source said, requesting anonymity due to the private nature of the plans. Huang’s itinerary could still change depending on whether potential meetings are confirmed.
The China visit — a trip that Huang regularly takes at this time of year — comes at a pivotal moment for the world’s most valuable company. The US is loosening export restrictions on AI processors, letting Nvidia sell its H200 model in the Asian nation. But on the Chinese side, government officials are deciding how many of the chips to let in. Beijing plans to approve imports of the products as soon as this quarter for certain uses, Bloomberg reported.
A representative for Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia declined to comment.
China, the largest market for semiconductors, is looking to build up its homegrown chip industry and decrease reliance on US products. For now, though, local producers can’t match the capabilities of Nvidia’s processors, which are used to develop and run AI models. Though the H200 is a generation behind the Nvidia chips available in the US, it’s still seen as more powerful than Chinese offerings.
Due to security concerns, Beijing will bar the H200 chip from the military, sensitive government agencies, critical infrastructure and state-owned enterprises, people familiar with the matter have said. That mirrors similar measures that the Chinese government adopted for foreign products such as Apple Inc. devices and Micron Technology Inc. chips.
During a China trip in July, Huang managed to secure meetings with Vice Premier He Lifeng and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao. He also celebrated the Lunar New Year holidays with his employees in China in January 2025, opting to skip US President Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
On Wednesday, Huang is scheduled to appear at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he’ll be interviewed by BlackRock Inc. CEO Larry Fink.
Meanwhile, the US is imposing a 25% tariff on certain advanced semiconductors ahead of their shipment to China, a move aimed at fulfilling Trump’s desire for a surcharge on the sales. Washington has also stipulated additional requirements for H200 licensing applications. Exporters have to certify that approved China shipments won’t create a shortage in the US market. And companies must ensure that production for Chinese customers won’t displace manufacturing capacity that could be used to make chips for American buyers.
Even with those restrictions, letting China buy Nvidia AI chips remains controversial among US lawmakers.
In a hearing last week, US Representative Brian Mast said that China “would likely overtake us in the AI arms race” if the country had free access to Nvidia processors. The Florida Republican, who chairs the House panel on foreign affairs, added that Nvidia chips are far better than anything China can make domestically.
Mast went further on social media over the weekend, accusing Huang and his “paid minions” of “fighting to sell millions of advanced AI chips to Chinese military companies like Alibaba and Tencent.”
In the same post on X, Mast challenged Huang to debate him on Fox News. The lawmaker is working to advance a draft bill that would introduce arms-style congressional oversight over the sale of advanced AI chips and give the legislative branch the ability to block H200 sales through a joint resolution. Huang has said that such power should remain with Trump and the Department of Commerce.
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