US-China trade talks avoid chip curbs, leaving Nvidia H200 exports in limbo

The United States did not make semiconductor export controls a major focus of recent trade discussions with China, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Friday, signalling that any breakthrough on sales of advanced American AI chips to Chinese firms remains distant.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Greer said Washington and Beijing did not substantially discuss restrictions on semiconductor exports during bilateral meetings held in Beijing this week, even as chipmaker Nvidia pushed for wider access to the Chinese market.

The comments indicate that hopes of near-term approval for expanded sales of Nvidia’s advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to China remain uncertain, despite Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang joining Trump’s Beijing visit this week in a late addition to the delegation.

Reuters had earlier reported that the US approved exports of H200 chips to around 10 Chinese companies, including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance, though no shipments have been delivered so far. The Trump administration cleared the exports in December before imposing additional conditions in January.

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Greer said decisions on whether China ultimately imports the chips would depend on a broader balance between commercial and national security considerations.

“They’re fluid, right? They change over time. It depends on what threats you see, what’s commercially available worldwide, what the Chinese can already do,” he said.

“And so you want to make sure you strike a balance between national security, protecting high tech, but also making sure that we’re benefiting from overseas markets.”

The dispute over advanced AI chips has become a central flashpoint in the broader technology rivalry between Washington and Beijing. While Chinese artificial intelligence firms such as DeepSeek have increasingly promoted their use of domestically produced chips, US export restrictions continue to hamper China’s efforts to build a self-sufficient semiconductor ecosystem.

Chinese chip manufacturers are still struggling to scale advanced production capacity, creating shortages in computing power that have reportedly forced several AI companies in China to ration user access in recent months.

At the same time, Chinese policymakers remain wary of relying too heavily on American semiconductor technology, which Beijing increasingly sees as a strategic vulnerability amid worsening geopolitical tensions.