Trump’s blessing of Nvidia AI chip sales to China gets a chilly reception from GOP

President Donald Trump’s decision to allow the US technology giant Nvidia The idea of ​​selling more advanced semiconductors to China is being pushed back by some Republicans wary of giving Beijing an advantage in the race for global AI supremacy.

The agreement announced by Trump Real Social post On Monday evening, Nvidia will be allowed to sell its H200 AI chips to China, as long as the US government gets 25% of the sales.

The H200 chips aren’t Nvidia’s most advanced chips, but they are more powerful than the company’s previous H20 chips, which were developed specifically for the Chinese market.

Over the summer, the White House approved Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices to sell their less powerful chips to China for 15% of sales revenue. Beijing reportedly told companies not to buy these chips.

Trump wrote in his social media post that Chinese President Xi Jinping “responded positively” to the latest offer.

CNBC has reached out to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. for comment.

Experts warn that China’s access to better chips will reduce America’s hardware advantage and help Chinese developers greatly improve their AI models and other technologies.

Some of Trump’s Republican allies appear to agree.

“Alarm bells are going off in my head here,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told CNBC on Tuesday when asked about the chip sales deal.

Graham said, “I don’t mind doing normal business with China. But if you prove to me that this will increase their military capacity, I will oppose it.”

“My general view on this is that China’s progress on artificial intelligence is almost entirely parasitic on our technology, particularly our hardware,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said on Capitol Hill earlier Tuesday.

“That’s why I don’t want China to win the AI ​​race. I want to win the AI ​​race,” Hawley said. “But if we want to beat China, I think we need to restrict their ability to leverage our own technology, and I think we’ll want to reduce rather than increase their access to our hardware.”

Hawley did not criticize Trump directly and stated that the president had more information about the situation than he did. “So I think he deserves some respect here,” he said.

“But I think in general I would want to restrict American hardware from going to China,” he added.

The US Select Committee on China, a Republican-led panel, echoed Hawley’s concerns to focus on “the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party.”

“Currently, China is far behind the United States in terms of chips powering the AI ​​race. Since the H200s are far better than what China can produce domestically, both in capability and scale, @nvidia selling these chips to China could help it catch up with America in total computing,” the committee said in a statement about X.

Beijing will use the H200s, which have significantly more processing power and memory bandwidth than China’s top chips, “to strengthen its military capabilities and totalitarian surveillance,” the panel’s statement said.

“Finally, Nvidia should have no illusions; it will rip off Chinese technology and mass-produce it itself and try to end Nvidia as a competitor,” he said at the panel. “This is China’s playbook, and they use it in every critical sector.”

Not all Republicans stack up.

“I have no real problem providing them with some money [chips]“But we need to know where it is, how they use it, that sort of thing,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told CNBC.

But there is vocal support on both sides that China is slowing down its ability to source the world’s best chips.

Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., was introduced last week bipartisan legislation This would direct the Trump administration to deny advanced chip export licenses to China and other foreign adversaries for at least 30 months.

“The best artificial intelligence chips are produced by American companies. Preventing Beijing from accessing these artificial intelligence chips is crucial for our national security,” Ricketts said in a press release announcing the bill. he said.

One of the bill’s co-sponsors, R-Ark. “To win the AI ​​race, it is critical that we protect American AI innovations from Communist China,” said Senator Tom Cotton. he said.