Nvidia AI chips to undergo unusual U.S. security review before export to China

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The artificial-intelligence chips that Nvidia is allowed to ship to China will undergo a special security review in the U.S. before they are exported, according to administration officials.

The unorthodox step highlights the national-security pressure on the Trump administration following its decision to allow the controversial sales. Nvidia’s H200 AI chips that are part of the deal would mainly be manufactured in Taiwan. From there, they would travel to the U.S.

for a national-security review, people familiar with the matter said. The chips would then be sent on to China. The complex supply-chain journey and unusual security review for the chips highlights the unprecedented nature of the agreement, experts said.

The U.S. is supposed to receive a 25% cut from the sales and faces legal obstacles structuring the deal without it appearing like an export tax, another potential explanation for the unusual setup, they said. The Constitution forbids the U.S.

government from imposing export taxes. Some analysts say the AI-chip company is pursuing profits while national-security considerations take a back seat. “The interests here are not really those of the country, they are those of Nvidia," said Chris McGuire, who worked on export controls in the Biden administration and is now a senior fellow for China and technology at the Council on Foreign Relations.

He and other analysts in favor of export restrictions argue that large-scale H200 sales could erode the U.S. advantage in AI-computing power. Trump administration officials, including White House AI Czar David Sacks, and Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang say China’s domestic chip companies are improving more quickly than much of the world