U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Wednesday he had talked with Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang and that the chip company executive was aware of where he stood on export regulations.
When questioned about the encounter, Trump referred to Huang as a "smart man." Pressed on whether he had made clear to Huang his views on export regulations and the types of semiconductors that the company may give to China, Trump said: "He knows."
A request for comment from Reuters was not immediately answered by Nvidia. The administration is debating whether to permit Nvidia to sell its H200 chips, which are one generation behind its current flagship chips, to China at the time of Huang's meeting with Trump.
Huang was in the U.S. capital meeting with senators, where he informed them that state-by-state U.S. rules will delay the growth of AI development, he told CNBC.
Nvidia had also opposed a separate proposed piece of legislation that would have obliged it to offer to sell its chips to U.S. customers before receiving permits to sell those chips to "countries of concern." Nvidia had contended the law would impede global competition in AI sectors.
Later in the day at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where Nvidia is a corporate donor, Huang downplayed worries that Nvidia's chips are being trafficked in big amounts to nations where they are banned. Huang stated, "A GPU for AI data centers, that GPU weighs two tons," alluding to the graphics processing units used by the company.
"It has one and a half million pieces. It consumes 200,000 watts. It costs $3 million. Every so often somebody says, you know, these GPUs are being smuggled. I truly would love to see that - not to mention you have to sneak enough of them to fill a football field."
