By Karen Freifeld and Alexandra Alper
December 9 – China hardliners and Democratic lawmakers criticized the Trump administration for its decision to allow Nvidia to ship its second most advanced artificial intelligence chip to China, citing concerns that Beijing could use the technology to overburden its military and eventually bankrupt and replace Nvidia.
Republican President Donald Trump announced the move to allow H200 sales to China in a social media post on Monday, adding that the US would collect a 25% fee on such sales and that AMD and Intel would get approval to sell similar chips there.
The decision “puts our competitive advantage up for sale, all for a 25 percent reduction in chip exports,” said Brad Carson, a former assistant secretary of the Army. “When China starts supplying its military with AI built on American chips, the world will regret that decision.”
The White House, the Commerce Department and the Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move is the most dramatic example yet of Trump’s new push to loosen restrictions on the sale of advanced US artificial intelligence technology to China as he seeks to expand overseas markets for American companies. It also faces Beijing’s imposition of export controls on rare earth minerals, key ingredients for making a wide range of technologies in the US and abroad.
It marked a dramatic turnaround from his first term, when Trump drew international attention by cracking down on China’s access to US technology, citing claims Beijing was stealing US intellectual property and using commercially acquired technology to bolster its military, which Beijing denies.
But the administration, led by White House AI czar David Sacks, now says the supply of advanced AI chips to China is discouraging Chinese rivals such as Huawei from redoubling efforts to catch up with Nvidia and AMD’s most advanced chip designs.
If in five years, AI chips made by sanctioned Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei are everywhere, “that means we’ve lost… We can’t let that happen,” Sacks said at an event in January.
But many in Washington disagree. Stewart Baker, a former official at the Homeland Security and National Security Agency, said the idea that the US can keep China dependent on US chips by letting it have the H200 is a “delusion.
“There’s no world in which they won’t continue to push the domestic industry as hard as they can to ultimately bankrupt Nvidia and make the United States dependent on Chinese artificial intelligence,” Baker said.
Democratic lawmakers echoed those sentiments. Senator Ron Wyden accused Trump of being “taken to the cleaners by China again” and argued that “every American will be less safe because of his terrible AI deal.” Meanwhile, US Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi described the move as “a profound national security mistake and a gift to our top strategic competitor”.
But some China hawks see the impact as more limited, including James Mulvenon, a China military expert who wrote a report that helped convince the first Trump administration to sanction Chinese chipmaker SMIC in 2020.
“Regardless of this decision, the Chinese government has made it clear that it is not its long-term strategic goal to be dependent on Nvidia or any other Western technology, so these gains are likely to be temporary,” he said.
This article was generated from an automated news agency source without text modification.
