WASHINGTON (Realist English). U.S. President Donald Trump has declared that Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence chips will be reserved exclusively for American companies and kept out of China and other foreign markets — a move signaling a tougher line on technology exports.
In a taped interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes”, and later in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said the new Blackwell AI processors — Nvidia’s top-end chips powering the latest generation of AI systems — would not be made available to non-U.S. buyers.
“The most advanced — we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” Trump said. “We don’t give the Blackwell chip to other people.”
The remarks mark a sharp policy shift that could see the White House tighten export restrictions beyond what U.S. officials previously indicated. The new rules could effectively bar China — and potentially other countries — from obtaining Nvidia’s most sophisticated semiconductors.
In July, the Trump administration unveiled a new AI export strategy, designed to loosen environmental rules and expand technology cooperation with U.S. allies while blocking Chinese access to advanced chips.
However, Trump’s latest comments appear to narrow that policy. On Friday, Nvidia announced plans to supply more than 260,000 Blackwell AI chips to South Korean companies, including Samsung Electronics, raising questions about how the new export curbs will be applied.
Asked whether any version of the Blackwell chip might still be sold to Chinese firms, Trump said he would block sales of the “most advanced” models but left open the possibility of allowing scaled-down versions.
“We will let them deal with Nvidia, but not in terms of the most advanced,” he said.
The suggestion of partial access has already sparked backlash from China hawks in Washington, who argue that even downgraded chips could enhance Beijing’s military and AI capabilities.
Representative John Moolenaar, chair of the House Select Committee on China, said any sale to Chinese entities “would be akin to giving Iran weapons-grade uranium.”
Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture is seen as critical to U.S. efforts to sustain AI and supercomputing leadership, including in areas tied to nuclear weapons modernization.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last week that the company has not sought export licenses for China, citing Beijing’s opposition to its presence in the market.
“They’ve made it very clear that they don’t want Nvidia to be there right now,” Huang told developers at a recent event, while noting that Chinese sales had previously helped fund Nvidia’s U.S. research and development.
Trump’s move underscores Washington’s growing resolve to weaponize tech dominance in its rivalry with Beijing — signaling that, for now, the world’s most powerful AI chips will stay firmly on U.S. soil.