The U.S. Department of Commerce has put out an official statement, which formally allows NVIDIA to ship its highly treasured AI chips to China. The official statement lays out the ground rules under which such an arrangement is possible.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will now evaluate export licenses for chips from chipmaking companies NVIDIA, AMD, and others. NVIDIA’s popular H200 chip will be included as part of the evaluation.
The Department of Commerce has clarified that as long as the U.S. supply of these chips is not hindered, export to China is allowed. Other conditions included “that the Chinese purchaser has adopted export compliance procedures, including customer screening; and that the product has undergone independent, third-party testing in the United States to verify its performance and security.”
Chip sales were initially restricted by officials in Washington over concerns that such trade would compromise U.S. defense and technology secrets. NVIDIA now occupies a huge stake in AI infrastructure with a collection of chips fit for powering multiple applications within the sector.
NVIDIA has been eyeing the Chinese market for a while now, and Jensen Huang has spoken about the issue multiple times before of not being able to supply the company’s products to the world’s second-largest economy.
At the time of writing, NVIDIA shares were trading at $182.06.