As U.S. steps up chip-export restrictions, Nvidia maintains a China presence by making versions of its powerful processors that qualify for sale there

Illustration: Emil Lendof/WSJ

The Trump administration’s new restrictions on sales of artificial-intelligence chips to China come with a familiar feeling for Nvidia.

The chip maker has spent years finding new ways to continue doing business with a huge market while staying on the correct side of U.S. regulations. The regulations generally limit the speed and capabilities of advanced AI processors that can be sold to China.

Each time the U.S. has announced new restrictions, Nvidia launched updated versions of its processors that fell below the performance limitations.

On Thursday, Chinese state media reported that Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang met with a Chinese official in Beijing. “The China market is very important to us,” Huang said in a video posted by state media, wearing a suit and tie instead of his usual leather jacket. “The technical excellence of Chinese industry is quite impressive.”

While regulations have made doing business with China tougher, demand for Nvidia’s cutting-edge AI chips globally has been a boon to its revenue. 

The company has said that it follows U.S. regulations in chip sales “to the letter” and that U.S. interests are served when the tech industry exports its products around the world.

The Trump administration’s new restrictions require export licenses for some artificial-intelligence chips, including Nvidia’s H20 chips and AMD’s MI308 product. The move rattled the companies’ shares.