Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia on Tuesday said it intends to resume sales of its H20 AI chips to China, a major development for the company after facing export restrictions from the United States (US).
According to official reports, the US government in April notified NVIDIA that it needed a special license to sell the chips to China, thus halting shipments.
The H20 chips were actually specially designed to comply with previous export controls imposed by Beijing.
However, now the US government has assured that the license will be approved. NVIDIA said in a statement that it is optimistic that shipments of the chips to China will begin in the near future.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has been increasingly aggressive in negotiating for US export controls to be relaxed, arguing that the restrictions are hindering the country's technological leadership.
In May, Huang revealed that the chip restrictions had caused NVIDIA's market share in China to drop by almost half.
The potential for a change in US stance was seen after Huang met with President Donald Trump last week.
During the talks, Huang expressed NVIDIA's full support for the administration's job creation agenda, efforts to bring operations back to the US (onshoring), and the vision to make America a leading player in artificial intelligence (AI), according to a company statement.
Recently, Washington and Beijing reached a preliminary agreement on a new trade framework that is seen as a positive step towards easing tensions between the two economic superpowers.
The agreement includes two main points, China agreed to relax export controls on rare earths, which are key ingredients in technology, and the United States will now reduce exports of certain technologies to China.
