With Nvidia’s second-best AI chips headed for China, the US shifts priorities from security to trade

President Trump approved Nvidia’s H200 AI chip exports to China, receiving 25% of sales revenue. These powerful chips drive advanced AI systems, including autonomous weapons, amid ongoing US-China trade tensions.

This week, US President Donald Trump approved previously banned exports of Nvidia’s powerful H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China.

In return, the US government will receive 25% of the sales revenue, in what has become a hallmark of this administration to take a sales cut of a private company’s revenues.

The H200 is Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI processor. It’s roughly six times more capable than the H20 chips previously available to buyers in China.

These aren’t consumer gadgets powering the latest cat meme generator or helping you with the weekly pub quiz. They’re the computational engines behind advanced AI systems that increasingly drive autonomous weapons. This includes drone navigation systems, automatic gun emplacements and targeting algorithms in modern warfare.

Think less the futuristic world of the Terminator movies, more the very real AI-powered targeting systems already being deployed, including in Ukraine and Gaza.

At the end of a year that has seen the US and China locked in a bitter trade war in which Trump lifted tariffs on China as high as 145% at one point, the decision to allow these sensitive exports is stunning.

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