AsianFin -- Nvidia Corporation shares finished around 2% lower on Thursday, snapping their five-session winning streak as well as also two-session run of record close. The stock dipped after U.S. President Donald Trump denied any discussion about Nvidia’s advanced artificial (AI) chips during his meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
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Trump said his “amazing” talks with Xi didn’t cover approving sales of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips to China, when addressing reporters prior to boarding Air Force One and leaving South Korea on Thursday. But that doesn’t mean Nvidia is not a topic in talks between the heads of two states.Trump said he and Xi discussed Nvidia’s access to China in general.
Trump claimed the U.S. will mediate talks between Beijing and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang over China's use of restricted chips. “We did discuss chips,” Trump told reporters. “They’re going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips.” "I said (to Xi) that's really between you and Nvidia, but we're sort of the arbitrator or the referee," he said.
Nvidia stock rose around 2% and propelled the chipmaker the first-ever $5 trillion company by market value after Trump said he plans to discuss Blackwell chips with Xi. The remark fueled speculation that Nvidia’s state-of the-art Blackwell chips could hit the Chinese market in the near term.
Trump three months ago indicated he could allow Nvidia to sell the scaled-down Blackwell,while confirming his administration greenlighted exports of certain Nvidia AI chips to China, in exchange for giving the government 15% of the revenue they get from the sales. "[Nvidia CEO] Jensen [Huang] also has the new chip, the Blackwell. A somewhat enhanced-in-a-negative-way Blackwell. In other words, take 30% to 50% off of it," said Trump.
Asked on Thursday if the U.S. would authorize exports of downgraded Blackwell processors, Trump replied: “We’re not talking about the Blackwell.”
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer the same day reiterated that the Blackwell chips were not part of the talks with Chinese officials and added they are unlikely to be part of future negotiations. “We do have crown jewels in the United States, the Blackwells being part of those, so those were not really on the table,” he told reporters.
Nvidia would talk to China to see what was possible after the Trump-Xi meeting, according to Greer. He also said he expects Beijing’s probes into American chipmakers “to go away” after the meeting, potentially clearing a path for China to buy more U.S. chips.
Two People familiar with discussions in the Chinese market were skeptical that Beijing would quickly change its stance on Nvidia chips, Reuters reported. These sources noted China didn’t want to settle for inferior chips like the H20, the most advanced AI chip that the U.S. is allowed to sell in China, for the chip was far behind the Blackwell in performance and it believed that domestic rivals could catch up with it soon.
One of the sources said China would still be willing to consider the B30A, the downgraded version of the Blackwell chip, if the Trump administration gives Nvidia the nod on its sales to China.
Huang earlier this week said Nvidia had not sought U.S. export licenses to send its fastest chips to China because of the Chinese stance. "They've made it very clear that they don't want Nvidia to be there right now," he said at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) AI conference, adding that the company needed access to the Chinese market to fund U.S.-based research and development.
