Betting Trump’s cut will stick
Nvidia has lit the afterburners on H200 production because nothing says “free market” like a government revenue share.
Nvidia, chief executive Jensen Huang said: “Demand for the chips ‘is high . . . very high, and we’ve fired up our supply chain and H200s are flowing through the line” at CES in Las Vegas on 6 January 2026.
The move is a punt that the White House will finally sign off on renewed China sales, after President Donald Trump said in December 2025 he would allow shipments if the US government gets a 25 per cent cut.
Nvidia, chief executive Jensen Huang said: “We’re getting the last details of the licensing finished with the US government,” as if export controls are just another bit of paperwork.
Huang has been locked out of flogging advanced AI data centre kit into China since last year, thanks to Washington restrictions and Beijing’s own grumbles about US tech muscle.
Huang said: “It appears that we’re going to be going back to China,” and that is doing a lot of work for a deal which still is not finalised.
He floated that his 2026 revenue call of half a trillion dollars might go higher if China reopens, because nothing boosts forecasts like suddenly regaining a vast market.
The H200 is not Nvidia’s shiny new toy, sitting ahead of the watered-down H20 it once sold to China but behind the latest Blackwell chips.
Even so, Trump’s willingness to wave H200 exports through has annoyed China hawks in his Republican party and Democrats, who reckon it hands Beijing an AI edge.
The legal basis for paying the US government 25 per cent of China revenue is also getting side-eye, because it sounds like a tax dreamt up on the spot.
Beijing has not exactly rolled out the red carpet, steering domestic tech firms away from Nvidia silicon and keeping the whole restart looking messy.
Huang said: “We are not expecting any press releases or . . . any large declarations [from Chinese authorities]” before adding “We’ll learn about everything through purchase orders” from Chinese customers, Huang said.
He reckons the H200 will be “competitive” against Chinese rivals such as Huawei, though he admitted Nvidia will need permission to ship newer parts into China to stay ahead.
Huang used CES to announce Vera Rubin, Nvidia’s next AI data centre platform, is in production and claimed it is five times faster than Blackwell, with shipping still pegged for the second half of this year.
Investors are watching for any wobble in Nvidia’s cadence, while customers like Google, Amazon and OpenAI quietly build their own chips in case the supply chain romance ends.
AMD, chief executive Lisa Su took her swing at CES, boasting about what she called “the world’s best” AI server using MI400 chips that will go up against Vera Rubin later this year.
