China decides that, instead of gloating like a Bond villain before the final act, they will just load up on Nvidia loot before the White House realises what they’ve done.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said he does not expect China’s government to publicly bless imports of the US company’s H200 chips, and reckons the real signal will be purchase orders.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said, “My expectation is that we’re not expecting any press releases or any large declarations,” after noting demand for H200s is strong among Chinese customers.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang told the gathered throngs at CES in Las Vegas, “It’s just going to be purchase orders. If the purchase orders come, it’s because they’re able to place purchase orders.”
For those who came in late, US president Donald Trump last year reversed a longstanding ban on shipping advanced artificial intelligence chips to China, saying Nvidia could sell the H200, predecessor to its “Blackwell” chips provided he got a cut.
Earlier on Tuesday, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the US government is “working feverishly” on licence applications for Nvidia to ship H200 chips to China, but the outfit still does not know when approvals will land.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress added, “We’re going to wait and see what will happen.”
At CES, Huang said Nvidia is ramping H200 output for Chinese firms, and the pipeline is already moving. “The customer demand is high – quite high. We’ve fired up our supply chain, and H200s are flowing through the line.”
On Monday, Nvidia unveiled six new chips it says are in full production for the next “Vera Rubin” generation of its AI systems. Kress would not name specific bottlenecks but said “we feel very solid” about the state of its supply chain.
Nvidia has called for $500 billion in sales from “Blackwell” plus the upcoming Vera Rubin chips by the end of this year. Kress said there have “already been discussions” about 2027 data centre buildouts, without giving guidance.
Huang said demand is high across Nvidia’s lineup and pointed to its manufacturing partner. “I’m fully expecting a really giant year for our business with TSMC,” Huang said, referring to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, which makes most of Nvidia’s chips.
Huang said he plans to visit Israel soon, where Nvidia has 5,000 employees and is looking to double headcount. He did not comment on reports that Nvidia is in talks to buy AI21 Labs, but said he is open to deals.
“We might invest in, partner with, and we might, of course, acquire some semiconductor companies,” Huang said.
