Nvidia Worries About US-China Tech Fight Despite Amazing Growth
So get this, even though Nvidia had another amazing quarter, like, sales shot up 69%, they're still kinda worried. Their boss, Jensen Huang, was pretty happy about President Trump getting rid of an old rule about sending their chips overseas. But, tbh, the company's official papers said something else. They were like, 'hey, that old rule is gone, but a new one could come along and mess things up for us'. And that new rule could totally hit their business, especially since they finally got their car chip thing going strong in China.
Speaking of China, Huang wasn't so thrilled about the new rules Trump put in place back in April. Those rules stopped them from selling this one chip, the H20, that was made just for the China market. Huang even called it a 'springboard to global success'. Those export limits cost them a bunch of money, like, $2.5 billion last quarter and they think it'll be another $8 billion hit this quarter. Customers in China were stocking up on the H20 chips before the rules kicked in, and their China business made up a good chunk of their total money, about 12.5%.
Huang brought up a good point though. He was like, 'China already has AI, that's not the question. The real question is if one of the biggest AI markets in the world will use American tech'. He also said that these export rules shouldn't just make American companies stronger, but they shouldn't push half the world's AI brains to their competitors either.
He really believes that keeping Chinese open-source AI like DeepSeek and Qwen running on Nvidia chips gives US companies a heads-up on where the whole AI scene is going worldwide. He said, 'American tech needs to be the top choice for open-source AI. That means working with the best developers everywhere, even in China. America wins when things like DeepSeek and Qwen run best on American stuff'.
Meanwhile, a couple of senators, Jim Banks and Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to Huang asking about Nvidia opening a research and development place in Shanghai. They were kinda worried about it for national security reasons and wanted details on their plans. Nvidia's response? They said they're just getting more space for the people they already have there because everyone's back in the office after COVID. They said the work won't change.
Despite all this China stuff, Nvidia's shares actually went up! It helped that a US court blocked most of Trump's planned tariffs too. If the stock stays up, Nvidia could add like, $130 billion to its market value. Even with the China rules, Nvidia thinks they'll make around $45 billion next quarter, which is pretty close to what experts thought they'd make. That's still like, 50% more than last year! Company people also talked about big deals coming up in places like Saudi Arabia and Taiwan, so maybe the US-China trade stuff isn't as bad as everyone thought.
One investment guy, Michael Ashley Schulman, said Huang didn't really try to hide the China problems, but just made it sound like a small, manageable bump in the road for their super fast growth. Huang also gave a shoutout to Trump's trip to the Middle East where he made a bunch of deals. Huang said, 'Trump wants US tech to be the leader. The deals he made are good for America, creating jobs, improving things, making money from taxes, and helping with the US trade deficit'. Huang also agreed with the idea of bringing factories back to the US and using robots, which was something cabinet members like Howard Lutnick were talking about. Huang said, 'Future factories will use a lot of computers and robots. We totally see that too'.
