AI, chips, Jensen Huang, US and China are slowly turning out to be the reference points of the world. Jensen Huang, of Han Chinese descent, originally from Tainana in Tainan is the latest poster boy of the AI revolution. A US citizen, and founder CEO of Nvidia, he seems to be destined to lead us into the AI world confidently. Interestingly, given his origins he bridges the two competing and adversarial countries; US and China. For him the issues are not that simple.
On a visit to China, the third this year, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang described artificial intelligence models from Chinese firms DeepSeek, Alibaba and Tencent as world class. Undeniably, AI was revolutionising supply chains. He also expressed on Chinese soil that he would once again be able to sell the highly popular H20 chips to China. His firm walks a tightrope between the world’s two largest economies, each of which is battling for global dominance in AI.
The CEO of the most valuable firm on earth said that the Chinese market is massive, dynamic, and highly innovative. He also feels that for these reasons it’s crucial for American companies to establish roots in China. In mid- July 2025, Jensen Huang announced that the US government has assured that it would receive export licenses to H20 chips to China, effectively reversing the April ban. Deliveries are expected to start soon, enabling Nvidia to resume legal shipments into the Chinese market. Chinese companies have scrambled to place orders. Then Nvidia would need to send it to the U.S. government for approval.
Internet giants ByteDance and Tencent are in the process of submitting locations. Nvidia has originally designed the H20 as a downgraded version of its advanced H100 GPU specifically to comply with earlier US export controls for the Chinese market. It has a huge business impact. China represented approximately 13-17% of Nvidia revenue, resuming H20 sales could restore an estimated $10-20 billion in revenue in the current financial year. This waiver reopens a critical channel for Chinese firms Tencent, Alibaba etc to access US designed chip technology.
HAS CHIP BEEN WEAPONISED?
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.