Despite expectations, Trump did not discuss Nvidia's Blackwell chip with Xi

By Trevor Hunnicutt and Eduardo Baptista

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/GYEONGJU (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump may have teased that he could discuss Nvidia's state-of-the-art artificial intelligence Blackwell chips with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but in the end, he said the topic did not come up.

After Thursday's meeting in South Korea, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that semiconductors had been discussed and China was "going to be talking to Nvidia and others about taking chips", but added: "We're not talking about the Blackwell."

A day earlier, Trump had praised the Blackwell chip as "super-duper", adding he might speak to Xi about it, in comments that probably helped Nvidia make history as the first company to reach a $5-trillion valuation.

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The extent of China's access to Nvidia's chips has been a key point of friction with the United States.

Washington imposes export controls on sales of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China, seeking to limit its tech progress, particularly in applications that could help its military.

Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang has tried to persuade the Trump administration to loosen the controls, saying Chinese AI's dependence on U.S. hardware was good for America.

Nvidia has been working on a new chip for China based on its latest Blackwell architecture that will be less capable than the model sold outside the country but more powerful than the most advanced model it is currently allowed to sell there, the H20, sources have previously said.

But while private Chinese companies are believed to be very interested in purchasing such a chip, the government has turned cool towards Nvidia, discouraging purchases of the H20, and is instead promoting domestic chip manufacturers such as Huawei.

Huang said this week his company had not sought U.S. export licenses to send its newest chips to China because of the Chinese stance.

"They've made it very clear that they don't want Nvidia to be there right now," he said during a developers' event, adding that it needed access to the China market to fund U.S.-based research and development.

On Thursday at least, Trump did not appear to want to get into the thick of the issue.

"I said (to Xi) that's really between you and Nvidia, but we're sort of the arbitrator or the referee," he said.

Lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, have expressed opposition to giving China more access to advanced chips like Nvidia's Blackwell.

Nvidia declined to comment.