{"id":68436,"date":"2026-05-12T22:51:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/68436\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:51:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:51:54","slug":"chinas-ai-ascent-leaves-trump-a-stark-choice-escalate-or-relax-chip-controls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/68436\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s AI ascent leaves Trump a stark choice: escalate or relax chip controls?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">US President Donald Trump\u2019s landmark visit to China comes as the US-Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, fuels economic uncertainty and adds fresh strain to Washington-Beijing ties. In this story, part of a series examining how rivalry, interdependence and geopolitical crises are reshaping the relationship between the two powers, we examine how artificial intelligence (AI), chip controls and competing technology ecosystems are redefining US-China rivalry.<\/p>\n<p>Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was the undisputed <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/people-culture\/china-personalities\/article\/3318983\/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-wins-hearts-millions-china-tang-suit-rusty-mandarin?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">centre of attention<\/a> at a 1,000-guest banquet in the heart of Beijing in July last year, attended by Chinese government officials, diplomats, businesspeople and industrial leaders.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Barely managing a few bites of his dinner, he breezed through a marathon of media interviews and accepted a stream of selfie requests from guests. The rock star treatment even spilled into the hotel lobby when he left, where Huang patiently signed autographs for star-struck fans.<\/p>\n<p>The excitement was clear and perhaps understandable: Huang had arrived in Beijing with news that Nvidia\u2019s H20 chip had just been cleared for <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/tech\/big-tech\/article\/3321297\/us-starts-issuing-licences-nvidia-export-h20-chips-china-official-says?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">export to the Chinese market<\/a>. A watered-down version of Nvidia\u2019s cutting-edge AI chips, the H20 still outperformed many Chinese rivals and, with tech giants in the world\u2019s second-largest economy locked into Nvidia\u2019s ecosystem, it appeared Washington had all but secured the company\u2019s long-held dominance.But after Huang flew home, the momentum soon shifted. Beijing <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/tech\/tech-war\/article\/3325904\/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-says-he-disappointed-chinas-reported-chip-curbs?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">started an investigation<\/a> into the H20 citing security concerns, leading to a de facto import ban, and kept the door shut months later when Washington <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/diplomacy\/article\/3339797\/us-government-approves-nvidia-h200-chip-exports-china?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">permitted exports<\/a> of the more advanced H200, one of the company\u2019s most powerful accelerators for advanced AI models \u2013 though still not its strongest.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The developments underscore the rapid rise of China\u2019s AI industry and its decreasing reliance on Nvidia\u2019s technology, even as chips remain at the heart of the US-China rivalry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump\u2019s landmark visit to China comes as the US-Iran war disrupts global energy supplies, fuels&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[594,260,250,20380,12,39861,39862,39859,5864,574,39860,575,1992,17,739],"class_list":{"0":"post-68436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jensen-huang","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-deepseek","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-eurasia-group","14":"tag-h20","15":"tag-h200","16":"tag-huawei-technologies","17":"tag-jensen-huang","18":"tag-match-act","19":"tag-nvidia","20":"tag-semiconductors","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-washington"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116564062745922824","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}