Nvidia CEO in Beijing as US tech curbs, trade war threaten sales

(FILES) Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at Computex 2024 in Taipei on June 4, 2024.  (Photo by I-Hwa CHENG / AFP)

BEIJING, China — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Beijing on Thursday, state media said, days after the United States curbed sales of its H20 artificial intelligence chips to China.

Nvidia this week said it expected a $5.5 billion earnings hit this quarter due to a new US licensing requirement on GPUs (graphics processing units) with bandwidths similar to the H20, the primary chip it could legally sell in China.

Shares of the company slumped around seven percent on Wednesday.

In Beijing on Thursday, Huang met with Ren Hongbin, head of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, telling him that “China is a very important market for Nvidia”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

READ: Nvidia expects $5.5-B hit as US targets chips sent to China

His company, a key provider of chips used in AI, is working to try to maintain sales in China as US President Donald Trump wages a trade war with Beijing.

Hoping for cooperation

He expressed hope for “continued cooperation” with China on Thursday, state media said.

Washington has imposed tariffs of up to 245 percent on Chinese imports.

Beijing retaliated with 125 percent levies on US goods.

READ: Why Nvidia’s earnings are important to entire US stock market

Under Joe Biden, Trump’s predecessor, Washington had already restricted exports to China of Nvidia’s most sophisticated GPUs, tailored for powering top-end AI models.

Huang has said publicly that Nvidia will balance legal compliance and technological advances under Trump — but has vowed that nothing will stop the global advance of AI.

“We’ll continue to do that and we’ll be able to do that just fine,” the Taiwan-born entrepreneur told reporters last year.

Nvidia generated $17 billion in China in 2024, 13 percent of its total sales.