US approves Nvidia H200 chip sales to 10 Chinese firms; Jensen Huang in Beijing with Trump

The approval of NVIDIA H200 sales to China represents a carefully calibrated shift in Trump administration export policy, balancing strategic competition with commercial opportunity. H200 chips, positioned as a bridge between consumer-grade and datacenter-grade AI hardware, are permitted for export under new guidelines. Huang's visible presence at the Trump-Xi state banquet alongside other tech titans signals that chip diplomacy is central to the broader US-China trade normalization narrative.

NVIDIA shares have surged 20% in the past seven days, with the stock approaching $6 trillion in market cap. The company denied earlier takeover rumors but confirmed that AI infrastructure demand remains its primary growth driver. Cisco's recent guidanceCompany-issued forecasts of future financial performance. also highlighted that AI networking demand is broadening beyond switches into full-stack infrastructure, validating the ecosystem thesis that NVIDIA benefits from across the board.

The delegation at the Beijing banquet included Tim Cook, Elon Musk, and Jensen Huang, representing roughly $5 trillion in market capitalization. This suggests that Trump views tech leadership as central to negotiating China's opening on energy and agricultural trade. However, the H200 approval is narrowly tailored: only 10 Chinese firms are named, export volumes are likely capped, and advanced H100/H800 chips remain restricted.

Sceptics note that China's ability to adopt H200s does not solve its core constraint, which is not compute but memory bandwidth scarcity. Multiple CEOs (MSFT, META, GOOGL, AMZN, AAPL) said on recent earnings calls that memory constraints are not ending soon, yet the market prices Micron at only 7x earnings. If China gets marginal chip relief but memory remains bottlenecked, the stock-price reaction may be a head-fake; conversely, if this opens the door to broader chip sales, the rally is justified.