Jensen Huang, the chief executive officer (CEO) of NVIDIA, visited China again after three months. As the United States strengthens its semiconductor regulations against China, attention is drawn to CEO Huang's activities in China as NVIDIA finds itself caught between the U.S. and China.
According to the official social media (SNS) account "Yuyuantantian" affiliated with China Central Television (CCTV) on the 17th, CEO Huang arrived in Beijing at the invitation of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT). He held talks with CCPIT Chairman Lun Hongbin and was reported to have said, "China is a very important market for NVIDIA," adding, "We hope to continue to cooperate with China."
This is CEO Huang's visit to China after three months since January of this year. At that time, CEO Huang had visited Shenzhen, Taiwan, Beijing, and Shanghai. Unlike the heads of U.S. technology corporations who attended the inauguration of President Donald Trump, some interpreted that Huang's week-long stay in China emphasized the significance of the Chinese market.
Recently, as U.S.-China tensions have intensified, NVIDIA finds itself caught in the middle of the two countries. On the 16th (local time), the U.S. Department of Commerce designated new items requiring export licenses to China, including NVIDIA's artificial intelligence (AI) chip, H20, thereby further tightening semiconductor export regulations. This chip was a high-spec AI chip that NVIDIA could provide to China within the limits imposed by U.S. government regulations.
NVIDIA estimated that it would incur an expense of $5.5 billion (approximately 7.8 trillion won) due to not being able to sell the H20 chips in China.