New York, Jan 21, 2026, 06:47 EST — Premarket
Nvidia and other AI-related stocks dipped in Wednesday’s premarket session after Reuters reported that CEO Jensen Huang aims to visit China in late January. The move highlights ongoing uncertainties surrounding high-end chip sales to the country. Nvidia dropped 4.3% to $178.07, Broadcom slid 5.4% to $332.60, and Taiwan Semiconductor lost 4.4% to $327.16. Microsoft and Alphabet also saw declines. 1
The China factor is critical now since the AI boom hinges on a straightforward premise: more data centres, more chips, and increased spending. But policy tensions can quickly alter that spending trajectory, particularly when it comes to the priciest processors.
Timing is another factor. As big cloud and platform companies gear up to report soon, investors are zeroing in on forward guidance to gauge if AI spending is still strong or beginning to resemble last year’s over-ordering spree.
Last week, the Trump administration gave the green light to Nvidia’s H200 chip sales to China, though under strict rules requiring third-party testing and shipment conditions, Reuters reported. Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg dismissed the framework as “a Band-Aid,” while Saif Khan, a former White House National Security Council official, warned the rule would “substantially boost China’s AI capabilities.” 2
The policy change hasn’t cleared up the issue. Chinese customs officials informed agents that Nvidia’s H200 chips cannot be imported into China, Reuters reported. It remains uncertain if this is a formal ban or just a temporary restriction. 3
Nvidia is ramping up its focus on “inference” — the phase where a trained AI model delivers outputs like answers, images, or code based on prompts — shifting attention from just building models to scaling their operation. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company put $150 million into Baseten during a $300 million funding round that values the startup at $5 billion. 4
The export debate took center stage at Davos this week. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei likened selling advanced AI chips to China to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea,” in a chat with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the World Economic Forum. 5
Attention is shifting from chips to major AI investors. Microsoft plans to release its fiscal 2026 second-quarter earnings after the market closes on Wednesday, Jan. 28. 6
But policy risk works both ways. Washington’s easing can be pulled back, while Beijing might keep restrictions in place, throwing off investors’ sense of demand and supply simultaneously. Even setting politics aside, the downside is clear: AI spending rises, just not quickly enough to meet the high expectations already priced in.
Mark your calendar for Jan. 28, when Microsoft releases its earnings call, revealing new figures on cloud demand and AI spending — exactly the update traders have been waiting on. 7
