Nvidia CEO urged the US to relax China’s AI restrictions

On Wednesday, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang urged the United States to relax the restrictions on exporting AI tech to China, warning that continued restrictions could cost American suppliers tens of billions of dollars.

Speaking at the Computex trade show in Taiwan, Huang said home-grown Chinese firms such as Huawei Technologies would start covering the demand if U.S. vendors were blocked due to export barriers. He put the potential China market for 2026 at about $50 billion.

“The U.S. should maximize the speed of AI diffusion. Because if we don’t, the competition will come,” Huang told reporters after his keynote. He pointed out that China now accounts for “50 percent of the world’s AI developers,” arguing that the United States would be better served if those engineers built their systems on Nvidia or other American technology rather than on rival domestic chips.

Huang’s stance is in line with officials from Washington who want the US to maintain control of the global AI ecosystem. White House AI adviser David Sacks has promoted the idea of a U.S. “tech stack” spanning hardware, software, and cloud services. This year, the Trump administration reversed an earlier blanket ban on many Nvidia shipments but is drafting a new licensing framework that could tighten performance thresholds.

Chinese AI alternatives may grow quickly if the US companies get sidelined

At the same time, U.S. officials have renewed objections to the use of Huawei semiconductors, angering Beijing. Huang said assuming the United States is the only source of advanced AI infrastructure is “fundamentally wrong” and predicted that Chinese alternatives would grow quickly if U.S. parts remain off-limits.

Behind the scenes at Computex, the 62-year-old executive met with SoftBank Group chief Masayoshi Son to discuss Stargate, a proposed $500 billion network of data centers planned by SoftBank, OpenAI, and other partners. The massive project is expected to rely heavily on Nvidia’s technology, but has struggled to line up financing.

Export controls are already hurting Nvidia’s bottom line. After earlier rules barred sales of its top-tier chips to China, the company designed a lower-specification H20 model to comply with the limits. In April, the Trump administration widened the curbs to include that part, forcing Nvidia to write off $5.5 billion in H20 inventory set aside for Chinese buyers. Huang said the firm could not further downgrade the chip without making it unusable and would discard the stock.

He also stressed that cheap electricity and abundant real estate in mainland industrial zones made large-scale data centers financially attractive despite any added bureaucratic paperwork.

“Power is quite cost-effective in China. And there’s plenty of land,” he added, noting that Chinese cloud companies would simply buy processors from Huawei or well-funded domestic startups if Nvidia remains sidelined. “If Nvidia can’t sell in China, Huawei and others will fill the gap.”

Huang urged policymakers to reconsider the AI restrictions , arguing that access to the Chinese market would let U.S. firms “go back and win” rather than watch rivals build the world’s next wave of AI computing.

Your crypto news deserves attention - KEY Difference Wire puts you on 250+ top sites