US President Donald Trump said in an interview with CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) that the United States would not allow China to acquire Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
Trump made the statement during a “60 Minutes” interview aired on Sunday (November 2nd) on CBS News. Nvidia is the world’s most valuable company and dominates the AI chip market.
According to the transcript of the “60 Minutes” interview, host Norah O’Donnell asked Trump: “Would you permit Nvidia to sell their most advanced chips to China?”
Trump replied: “No. We would not permit it. But… we would allow them to do business with Nvidia. Nvidia is the best chip company in the world. We would let them do business with Nvidia, but they would not get the most advanced chips. We will not allow any country other than the United States to acquire that chip.”
O’Donnell asked: “Because that would let them win the AI race.”
Trump said: “They may not win, but they would certainly have the same advantage that we have.”
According to a separate Reuters report, Trump told accompanying reporters on Air Force One while flying back to Washington from Florida on Sunday: “Nvidia’s newest Blackwell chip is ten years ahead of all other chips. But we will not allow anyone else to get that chip.”
There has been ongoing speculation about whether Trump would allow Nvidia to provide China with a certain version of the Blackwell chip. Trump had hinted in August that he might allow Nvidia to export a simplified version of the next-generation advanced GPU chip to China.