China will open its market to AI chips from US, Nvidia’s CEO says

Published Tue, May 19, 2026 · 11:02 AM

NVIDIA chief executive officer Jensen Huang, speaking days after he joined President Donald Trump’s May 14-15 summit in China, said he expects Chinese authorities will eventually allow the import of artificial intelligence chips from the US.

“The Chinese government has to decide how much of their local market do they want to protect,” Huang said in an interview Monday with Bloomberg Television. “My sense is that over time the market will open.”

The Nvidia chief was a last-minute addition to the delegation of American business leaders for Trump’s high-stakes meetings in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Huang’s presence on the trip stirred speculation among investors and China hawks in Washington that Nvidia might achieve a breakthrough on shipping AI chips to the world’s second-largest economy. 

Huang said he did not discuss directly with Chinese officials the company’s effort to sell its H200 AI chips to customers in China, though he acknowledged that the topic came up during discussions between officials from both sides. “President Trump had some conversations with the leaders and I’m looking forward to what they decide,” Huang said.  

On Friday (May 15), after his return to Washington, Trump said that Nvidia’s H200 chips “did come up, and I think something could happen on that,” without elaborating further. The president added that China has not approved purchases of the H200 chips “because they chose not to, they want to develop their own.”

Trump agreed in December 2025 to allow Nvidia to ship its H200 AI chips to Chinese customers, a decision that marked a significant easing of measures aimed at restraining China’s growth in AI. Since then, the US Commerce Department has granted licences to clear the way for those sales. Yet officials in Beijing have held up purchases by companies in China, owing in part to their desire to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors and boost domestic champions like Huawei Technologies. 

Huang has previously identified China as a US$50 billion opportunity for Nvidia, though the company earlier in 2026 maintained its projection of zero sales for AI chips in the Chinese market. Nvidia reports its results on May 20, when investors will be looking for an update on the prospects for AI chip shipments to China. 

In March, Huang said that Nvidia had received US clearance for shipments to “many customers” in China and was preparing to fire up H200 production accordingly. Though Nvidia did receive orders, according to a person familiar with the matter, Chinese companies later informed the company that they could not actually fulfill the purchases. BLOOMBERG