Nvidia CEO disappointed after reports China has banned its AI chips

LONDON — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has weighed in on the U.S. tech giant’s struggles in China after a report claimed the country has banned its AI chips.

Huang said he was “disappointed” after the Financial Times on Wednesday reported that the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) had ordered companies including TikTok parent company ByteDance and Alibaba not to buy Nvidi’s RTX Pro 6000D, a chip that was made for the country.

In response to a question on the FT report, Huang said Wednesday that “we can only be in service of a market if the country wants us to be.”

“We probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have. And I’m disappointed with what I see,” Huang said. “But they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States, and I’m understanding of that.”

It comes after a tumultuous few years for Nvidia’s business in China, which Huang described as “a bit of a rollercoaster.”

“We’ve guided all financial analysts not to include China” in financial forecasts, Huang told reporters Wednesday at a press briefing in London. “The reason for that is because that’s largely going to be within the discussions of the United States government and Chinese government.”

Previously, the U.S. had imposed restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s AI chips to China — including a less powerful server chip called the H20 — over national security concerns.

However, in August, the White House announced that President Donald Trump and Huang had struck a deal under which Nvidia would receive export licenses in exchange for 15% of Chinese sales of the H20 going to the U.S. government.

The latest news Wednesday represents yet another blow to Nvidia’s China business. Earlier this week, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) opened an anti-monopoly investigation into Nvidia over its acquisition of Mellanox, an Israeli technology company that creates network solutions for data centers and servers.

Huang is accompanying U.S. President Donald Trump on his state visit to the U.K. this week.

On Tuesday, Nvidia announced £11 billion ($15 billion) of investment into U.K. AI infrastructure. And it was not alone — a slew of other U.S. tech giants, including Microsoft, Google and Salesforce, have also announced multibillion-dollar AI investments in the country.

Regardless of the current geopolitical situation, Huang stressed the importance of China’s AI sector.

“The Chinese market is important. It’s large. The technology industry is vibrant. We’ve been in service of it for 30 years,” the Nvidia boss said.

He added that Nvidia would “continue to be supportive of the Chinese government and Chinese companies as they wish, and we’re of course going to continue to support the U.S. government as they all sort through these geopolitical policies.”