Jensen Huang's Lobbying Fails as 'Blackwell' Excluded from Talks Due to Opposition from Trump Aides

Trump Considered Allowing Blackwell Exports
Aides Unanimously Opposed, Citing "Threat to U.S. National Security"

The issue of permitting exports of Nvidia's advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, to China was reportedly not discussed at the U.S.-China summit held in Busan due to opposition from aides within the Donald Trump administration.

Yonhap News Agency

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 3rd (local time), citing sources, that President Trump initially considered allowing Blackwell exports, but changed his mind due to opposition from his aides. Servers equipped with the Blackwell B200 graphics processing unit (GPU) deliver three times the performance for AI training and approximately fifteen times the performance for inference model execution compared to previous-generation H100-based servers.

The United States is restricting exports, believing that if Blackwell falls into Chinese hands, America's dominance in the AI sector could be undermined.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who cannot afford to abandon the Chinese market, lobbied President Trump by proposing to sell a modified version of Blackwell with reduced performance specifically for China.

President Trump even remarked that he might discuss the Blackwell issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping while traveling from Japan to Korea aboard his private jet to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

However, during preparations for the meeting with President Xi, President Trump reportedly faced strong opposition from his aides. Key officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, vehemently opposed the sale of Blackwell, arguing it would pose a threat to U.S. national security. With near-unanimous opposition from his aides, President Trump also changed his mind and decided not to raise the Blackwell issue during the summit with President Xi.

Subsequently, in an interview with CBS's current affairs program "60 Minutes," President Trump stated that he would not sell advanced semiconductors to China. However, there remains a possibility that the issue of exporting Blackwell to China could be revisited under a future Trump administration. In particular, as President Trump is scheduled to visit China in April next year, it is expected that lobbying efforts by Nvidia and CEO Huang will continue.