US export controls on advanced artificial intelligence chips stalled sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips in China, enabling domestic rival Huawei to gain ground in the market, the Associated Press reported.
The AP reported that the delays gave Huawei an opening in China’s AI chip market as the government shifted toward domestically designed alternatives.
Controls imposed by Washington over national security concerns initially blocked sales of Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips to Chinese buyers. By the time the Trump administration agreed to allow those exports under new conditions, Beijing had already begun encouraging businesses to use domestically designed chips from local competitors, notably Huawei, the AP reported.
Chinese companies are now overtaking global industry leaders including Nvidia in the home market, the AP reported, as the competition over AI computing hardware intensifies.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, during Trump’s May summit with Xi in Beijing, was mobbed by onlookers while seeking zhajiangmian noodles on the city’s streets. His celebrity status in China, however, did not translate into chip sales, the report indicated.
MSI previously reported that the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security had cleared Nvidia to sell H200 chips to China under conditions including third-party review and limits on how much China could import relative to US customers in January.