On Friday, Bloomberg reported that discussions were underway within the Trump administration. That information was therefore confirmed yesterday by the Commerce Secretary, during an interview... with Bloomberg.

While Howard Lutnick deferred the final decision to President Trump, he nonetheless framed the stakes around this choice: "Do you want to sell chips to China and push them to use our technology and our technological infrastructure, or tell them: Listen, we're not going to sell you our best chips. We're going to wait a little and we are ourselves going to join the AI race?"

A debate to be decided

There are in fact two opposing camps in the United States. The first, led by the "China hawks", argues that this is a matter of national security. Such technologies should not be exported to China, the United States' main rival, which could also use them to strengthen its military.

Meanwhile, others believe that the best way to win the AI race against China is to allow the export of Nvidia chips, so that AI infrastructure develops according to American standards. The aim here is to play the card of technological dominance.

Over the months, tensions have clearly mounted, and Donald Trump has often seemed tempted to lean toward the second line, without so far fully taking the plunge.

Authorizing exports of such chips would in any case mark a strategic shift by Washington, which has imposed export restrictions on semiconductors since 2022. These measures were notably taken to prevent Beijing and its military from gaining access to the most advanced technologies. It was the so-called "small yard, high fence" strategy, the idea being to erect strong barriers around a limited set of sectors.

A well-understood interest

In Washington, the most forceful advocate of allowing exports to China is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Beyond the broader policy debate, the current restrictions are shutting him out of a vast market. China is investing heavily in AI, yet Nvidia's projected revenue in China is currently... zero.

For months, he has therefore been trying to push the Trump administration to give him the green light. When he tells the Financial Times that "China is going to win the AI race", it is essentially a way of putting pressure on everyone. In substance, his message is this: if you want the US to lead in AI, everyone needs to build their models using our chips.

Are the Chinese pulling the strings?

The H200 chip is less powerful than the Blackwell chip, the most advanced produced by Nvidia. At the end of October, just before his meeting with Xi Jinping in South Korea, Donald Trump said that he might raise the issue of exporting Blackwell chips with his Chinese counterpart. In the end, the subject was not discussed at the summit.

The H200 chip would nonetheless represent a significant advance over the H20, whose export the United States approved earlier this year (in return for a 15% royalty). However, China has asked its companies not to buy it, citing supposed security concerns.

Some have interpreted that decision as a Chinese negotiating tactic aimed at securing access to a better chip. A strategy that could well pay off...