Overview

• In July 2025 the Commerce Department removed licensing requirements on Nvidia’s H20 chip, enabling shipments to resume just before CEO Jensen Huang’s visit to Beijing.
• The reinstatement follows the Trump administration’s May rollback of an April ban that had sought to block the H20 over fears it could bolster Chinese supercomputing capabilities.
• U.S. regulators have concurrently warned AI firms that buying Huawei’s advanced Ascend processors would breach export controls designed to curb military applications.
• Since 2022, U.S. policy has combined the $52 billion Chips and Science Act with successive export curbs and blacklists to protect semiconductor leadership.
• China has condemned the restrictions as malicious interference and accelerated its domestic chip development to reduce dependency on American technology.