Donald Trump's administration unexpectedly resigned from the planned ban on exporting H20 chips to China — the state-of-the-art AI systems that American companies can legally sale to the Chinese market. The decision was announced after dinner at Mar-a-Lago, which was besides invited to the CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang. The cost of 1 seat at the table was $1 million.
By information The NPR, inactive in early April, was planned to announce restrictions on H20 chips, which had been at the center of regulators' attention for months. The course changed after Nvidia declared fresh investments in AI data centers in the United States.
Chip H20, although intentionally weakened to meet export requirements, remains much more efficient than many locally available Chinese systems. It is so intensively utilized in inference models developed by DeepSeek, OpenAI and Meta. In the first 4th of 2025 alone, Chinese companies purchased H20 chips with a full value of $16 billion, expecting to impose restrictions soon.
However, political force in the United States is increasing, with any congressmen calling on the administration to include H20 chips with strict export surveillance. However, delays arise, among others, from staff shortages in the Industrial safety Office (BIS), liable for implementing controls.
The decision to halt the blockade may be seen as a political bow towards the technology industry, but according to experts it weakens the U.S. position in competing with China for an advantage in the AI sector.
