Companies Tread Carefully Amid US-China AI Power Struggle
As the competition for dominance in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors between the United States and China intensifies, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on June 17 that NVIDIA, the American AI semiconductor company, will participate in the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE) for the first time this year.
NVIDIA is scheduled to make its debut at the CISCE event, which will be held in Beijing, China, from July 16 to 20. CCTV reported that the overall scale of the event will increase by 15% compared to the previous year, as more American companies are expected to participate.
NVIDIA continues to walk a precarious tightrope between the United States and China, who are competing for supremacy in AI and semiconductors.
The Trump administration in the United States, which has inherited the AI chip export control policy from the previous Biden administration, is strengthening sanctions against China. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) under the U.S. Department of Commerce announced additional regulations in mid-May, including a complete ban on the use of advanced AI chips made in China and restrictions on training Chinese AI models using American chips.
Until now, NVIDIA had been selling the downgraded H20 chip, designed to comply with U.S. semiconductor export restrictions to China. However, starting last month, the Trump administration also restricted the export of the H20 chip to China. NVIDIA stated that these U.S. export controls to China have resulted in approximately $15 billion in lost revenue.
On May 22, Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, strongly criticized the Biden administration's AI export controls to China as a "completely failed policy" during a press conference at the Computex 2025 event held in Taipei, Taiwan.
On May 28, he warned in an interview with Bloomberg TV that if American companies are unable to export competitive AI chips to the Chinese market, Chinese companies such as Huawei will fill the gap. In fact, The Wall Street Journal has reported that Huawei is developing a high-performance chip comparable to NVIDIA's H100.
Meanwhile, last November's CISCE event drew attention when Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, attended for the first time. At the time, Cook stated, "Without our partners in China, there would be no Apple as we know it today," and pledged to further strengthen supply chain cooperation with China.
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