Experts urge trust as Nvidia's access to China market stalls

As the world's attention turns to whether higher-end chips from US semiconductor company Nvidia can gain better access to the Chinese market, experts are calling for more efforts to build mutual trust between China and the United States to address broader issues related to semiconductors, experts said.

The comments came after US President Donald Trump said that he had discussed Nvidia's access to China with the Chinese side in Busan, South Korea on Thursday, and that the US chipmaker would continue conversations with Beijing, Bloomberg reported.

However, Trump said he did not discuss the potential sale of Nvidia's Blackwell chips to China, dampening speculation that Washington will allow export of the powerful AI accelerators to the world's largest semiconductor market, Bloomberg added.

Tu Xinquan, director of the China Institute for World Trade Organization Studies at the University of International Business and Economics, said "As the US government talks about the discussions on chips, it is likely for them to ease restrictions on Nvidia's chip exports to China, and the chips will probably be higher-end—though definitely not the top-tier ones."

"They should be better than what was sold to us before. Otherwise, we wouldn't want them from a business perspective," Tu said.

"But even if the restrictions are lifted, whether we actually purchase them will depend on the situation. AI is a highly sensitive area now, and there are certain security risks," he added.

In late July, the Cyberspace Administration of China summoned Nvidia over alleged security risks concerning its H20 AI chips sold to China.

Tu noted that such security concerns about Nvidia chips were not unfounded. "Therefore, I suspect that even if the purchasing of Nvidia's higher-end chips is allowed by the US government, we might not buy them in large quantities. It would also depend on the type of institution—some enterprises might buy, while others would still avoid it," Tu added.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed in October that the company's share of China's advanced AI accelerator market has fallen from roughly 95 percent to 0 due to tightening US export controls.

"I can't imagine any policymaker thinking that's a good idea, that whatever policy we implemented caused America to lose one of the largest markets in the world to 0 percent," Huang said of the outcome.

He Hui, semiconductor research director at UK-based technology research firm Omdia, said "Currently, only the US and China are truly competitive players at the AI table. Without the Chinese market, the AI industry's growth narrative by Nvidia can't expand further."

"Nvidia CEO has consistently emphasized the rapid catch-up by Chinese companies, which is actually a wake-up call to the US government that further restrictions on US AI chips to China will only motivate Chinese companies to grow even faster," she said.

"There's certainly no visible ceiling for AI computing power yet. However, China is actively building its own ecosystem. Various vertical application sectors within the country are being vigorously promoted, and it is not necessary for China to rely solely on Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem for AI development," she added.