Trump Administration Weighs Export Licenses for Nvidia and AMD AI Chips

The Trump administration is considering new rules that would require foreign buyers to obtain U.S. government licenses to purchase American AI chips from companies such as Nvidia and AMD, Bloomberg and Axios report. A draft framework would give Washington broad control over whether and under what conditions other countries can build facilities to train and run AI models using U.S. hardware. The move comes after the White House scrapped the Biden administration’s more complex 'diffusion' rule for AI chip exports, which industry argued would have been unworkable. A Commerce Department spokesperson said the agency is 'committed to promoting secure exports of the American tech stack,' acknowledged 'ongoing internal government discussions about formalizing that approach,' and vowed not to return to Biden’s 'burdensome, overreaching and disastrous' rule. Nvidia and AMD shares initially fell on the news but later largely recovered, underscoring investor uncertainty over how restrictive any new licensing regime will be and how it might shape both national‑security controls and U.S. chipmakers’ foreign revenues.