Semiconductors and AI

President Trump announced he will allow Nvidia to sell H200 AI chips to China with the U.S. taking a 25% cut of sales, saying he informed Xi Jinping and that the "same approach" will apply to AMD and Intel as the Commerce Department finalizes details; the H200s remain a generation behind Blackwell chips, which stay restricted. Beijing has signaled it will tightly limit imports—requiring buyers to show domestic chips are insufficient—and the market reaction was muted (Nvidia shares slipped ~0.3% and analysts remained cautious), even as lawmakers raised security concerns and prosecutors have previously disrupted black‑market flows of banned Nvidia chips into China.

The Justice Department said Monday it detained Fanyue 'Tom' Gong, 43, of Brooklyn, and Benlin Yuan, 58, of Mississauga, Ontario, for allegedly conspiring to smuggle export‑controlled Nvidia H100/H200 AI chips to China as part of 'Operation Gatekeeper.' Prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas said authorities seized over $50 million in GPUs bound for China and other restricted locations and linked the case to a prior October guilty plea by Houston businessman Alan Hao Hsu and Hao Global LLC over attempts to export at least $160 million in such chips.