Trump Pauses Nvidia H20 Ban After Huang Dinner

The U.S. government has reportedly rolled back plans to restrict exports of Nvidia’s H20 HGX GPUs to China. This decision follows a high-profile dinner between former U.S. President Donald Trump and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.

Sources indicate that the Trump administration had been preparing to implement restrictions on H20 HGX GPU shipments, the most powerful AI GPUs still eligible for sale to China. These measures were slated to take effect this week, according to NPR.

The reversal reportedly occurred after a dinner attended by Jensen Huang at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. Following the dinner, Nvidia allegedly pledged to increase investments in U.S.-based AI data centers. This commitment seemingly addressed the administration’s concerns.

The planned ban preceded the Biden administration’s AI Diffusion Rule, scheduled for May 15, which prohibits sales of all American AI processors to Chinese entities. This rule effectively blocks China from acquiring advanced U.S. processors, as license exceptions for limited performance or quantities won’t apply to high-risk countries like China.

Nvidia designed its H20 GPU to comply with the Total Processing Performance (TPP) metric for exports to China. The AI Diffusion Rule introduces a Low Processing Performance (LPP) exception, allowing companies to ship limited numbers of TPP-compliant GPUs to Tier 2 countries (excluding the U.S. and its 18 allies) without a license.

However, China cannot legally obtain even minimal amounts of advanced U.S. AI processors through the LPP exception. All AI processor exports to China require a license, which is typically denied, hindering Chinese firms’ access to advanced AI hardware from the U.S.

This is a significant issue for Nvidia, as they reportedly sold $16 billion worth of H20 GPUs to Chinese entities in the first quarter of 2025. The future of H20 sales to China remains uncertain after May 15.

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration will modify the Biden administration’s AI Diffusion Rule, eliminate it entirely, or grant Nvidia export licenses to sell to major customers to enable H20 exports to China.