Overview

• The U.S. Commerce Department approved export licenses in mid-July after high-level talks lifted April’s ban, allowing Nvidia to sell existing H20 AI chips to Chinese customers.
• Nvidia confirmed it will not restart H20 production and will fulfill only remaining inventory, citing production lines repurposed for other GPUs.
• The export clearance was tied to a deal trading rare-earth metal concessions for chip access, highlighting the geopolitics of AI hardware and resource supply.
• During his recent Beijing visit, Jensen Huang met Vice Premier He Lifeng and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, reinforcing his role as a mediator between Washington and Beijing.
• Nvidia is developing a compliant Blackwell-based B30 GPU for China, and analysts forecast a future B40 model expected to feature Samsung’s GDDR7 memory.