DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 21, 2026, 13:07 CET
- Bloomberg reported Jensen Huang plans a late-January China visit as Nvidia tries to reopen sales of its H200 AI chip
- U.S. export rules cleared the H200 for China under new conditions, but Chinese customs has signaled the chip may not be allowed in
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned in Davos the policy could hand Beijing an edge in AI hardware
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang plans a late-January visit to China, Bloomberg News reported, as the chipmaker tries to reopen sales of its H200 AI processors. (Bloomberg)
This matters now because Washington has started loosening a ban on shipping advanced chips to China, reviving a business Nvidia and rivals like AMD have largely been locked out of. The Trump administration last week cleared exports of the H200 — a graphics processing unit, or GPU, used to train and run AI models — under Commerce Department rules that include third-party testing and a cap on China-bound volumes. Nvidia called the move a “thoughtful balance” for U.S. competitiveness, but Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg dubbed the limits a “Band-Aid” and former White House official Saif Khan said they would “substantially boost” China’s AI capacity. (Reuters)
China has sent a different signal. Customs authorities told agents the H200 chips were not permitted to enter China, and officials summoned domestic tech firms and urged them not to buy the chips unless necessary, people briefed on the matter told Reuters. Rhodium Group strategist Reva Goujon said Beijing may be seeking “bigger concessions” from Washington, while Council on Foreign Relations fellow Chris McGuire said China thinks it “has the leverage” in talks over licensing. (Reuters)
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei attacked the plan and likened selling the chips to China to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.” He called the move “crazy” and said it carried “incredible national security implications,” Semafor reported. (Semafor)
Nvidia, Microsoft and Anthropic announced a strategic partnership in November, with Nvidia and Microsoft committing to invest up to $10 billion and $5 billion in Anthropic. The companies said Anthropic would scale its Claude models on Microsoft Azure, powered by Nvidia chips. (NVIDIA Blog)
Huang is expected to attend company events ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays and may also visit Beijing, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. It was unclear whether he would meet senior Chinese officials and the itinerary could still change, the report said; Nvidia declined to comment. (Reuters)
In Washington, House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast is pushing legislation to block China’s access to sensitive U.S. technology, Axios reported. (Axios)
Nvidia has spent years trying to keep a foothold in China while complying with U.S. export controls, even as Chinese buyers and local chipmakers hunt for substitutes. The fight now sits at the intersection of geopolitics and supply chains, with the H200 becoming a symbol for both.
But the path back into China looks messy. Beijing has not clarified whether its customs guidance is a formal ban, a temporary brake, or leverage for talks, and Washington’s conditions — including lab checks and customer vetting — may prove hard to police at scale.
For Nvidia, the next test is whether Huang’s visit produces a workable route for shipments, or just more meetings and no cargo. For the U.S. government, it is whether a deal pitched as a narrow opening becomes a wider leak of AI hardware into a strategic rival.
