NVIDIA’s hopes of breaking back into China’s AI market remain stuck in neutral. Despite the Trump administration lifting export restrictions on the H20 AI GPU, the chipmaker reported zero sales of the product in China during its latest quarter. 
Instead, a one-off $650 million purchase of previously reserved inventory by an unnamed international customer padded the numbers, but that deal was outside of China.
The problem isn’t Washington anymore – it’s Beijing. Chinese regulators have opened probes into alleged security backdoors in the H20, fueling suspicions that NVIDIA’s hardware could be remotely disabled. This has given domestic tech giants a reason to sideline NVIDIA in favor of homegrown alternatives from players like Huawei and Cambricon, even if those solutions still lag behind in raw performance.
The standoff is deeply political. Trump’s AI action plan made national security a key priority, and Chinese policymakers have responded by urging state-backed firms to commit to a fully domestic AI stack. While shifting entirely to local chips is easier said than done, Beijing’s stance has effectively frozen NVIDIA out of what could have been a multi-billion-dollar revenue stream. Internal estimates suggest that if sales opened up, China could deliver between $2 and $5 billion in revenue for NVIDIA, not to mention future growth with Blackwell-based GPUs waiting in the pipeline.
But time is not on Team Green’s side. Huawei is closing the gap, and NVIDIA risks losing not just revenue but long-term dominance in a market that represents tens of billions in potential. CEO Jensen Huang is reportedly willing to make concessions – including offering a cut of revenue to the U.S. government – in order to secure access. Yet for now, the deadlock continues, with China skeptical of American chips and the U.S. unwilling to loosen control entirely.
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amd hw >>> nvidia anyway