Not only does Nvidia have to give US President Donald Trump a 25 per cent cut of its Chinese profits, but it also has to jump through fresh hoops and red tape before it can ship its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China.
Trump’s administration said on 13 January 2026 that the chipmaker must meet new security requirements under a Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security rule.
Under the rules, Nvidia must ensure there is a “sufficient” supply of AI chips in the US before any boxes head to China. Customers also have to show they have adequate security procedures in place.
There is also a compulsory check-up by an outside lab in the US, which will test the kit to ensure it remains within the approved performance parameters.
The new package is the next step in Washington’s efforts to allow Nvidia to resume shipments to China, after exports were effectively halted in April 2025. That pause hit Nvidia’s market share in the world’s second-largest economy and left Chinese AI firms scrambling for training hardware.
The administration, with its usual creative spin, is pitching the move to keep Nvidia in the game against Chinese chip outfits, arguing the H200 is not Nvidia’s top-tier gear. The line is that it will not hand Beijing the keys to the AI kingdom.
The 25 per cent is charged as a tariff, with chips routed from Taiwan, where they are made, back to the US before export to China.
Sceptics reckon the rules are a tell on how risky the approval really is, and that sticking to them to the letter could mean shipments never get signed off. They point to buyers such as Tencent and warn that “security guarantees” could end up looking decorative, given allegations about links to China’s military.
The rule also relies on customer identity verification and protections against unauthorised users accessing AI chips via cloud access. The House of Representatives piled on with the Remote Access Security Act, which it passed on 12 January 2026.
Lawmakers and officials are now scrambling to bolt security measures onto a chip industry that moves faster than Washington paperwork. Proposals are circling similar ideas, from ensuring US demand is covered first to codifying checks to prevent customers from being tied to US adversaries or their militaries.
Despite the noise, Trump has sided with Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang on allowing exports to go not just to China but also to countries with close ties to Beijing, such as the United Arab Emirates, which is only turning up the temperature in the whole fight.
