NVIDIA H20 sales in China: Experts call for a ban

Since mid-July , NVIDIA has been able to sell H20 GPUs in China again. A group of 20 national security experts have sent a letter to Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, highlighting the risks and calling for an export ban . Meanwhile, the Californian company has increased chip orders from TSMC, while Trump has reportedly even suspended export controls.

A misstep that endangers the economy

The Trump administration introduced new export restrictions to China to prevent the use of AI chips for military purposes. Following CEO Jensen Huang's visit to Washington, the Department of Commerce lifted the ban, allowing NVIDIA to once again sell H20 GPUs to Chinese companies.

The letter ( PDF ) sent to Secretary Howard Lutnick highlights the strategic misstep that will jeopardize the United States' advantage in the field of artificial intelligence for civilian and military use.

Contrary to Lutnick's claims , the 20 national security experts point out that the H20 chip is one of the best on the market, being optimized for inference with superior performance to the H100 chip. This will benefit Chinese companies, including DeepSeek .

Experts also point out that H20 chips share many components with Blackwell series chips. If exports to China increase, there will be fewer B100 and B200 GPUs for US companies. The letter's signatories also warn that H20 chips will almost certainly be used for military purposes, such as autonomous weapons systems .

For these reasons, they are calling for a ban on the export of NVIDIA GPUs to China. This isn't just a trade issue, it's also a national security issue. Trump is unlikely to follow this advice. Indeed, according to the Financial Times, the United States has suspended export controls to avoid negatively impacting ongoing trade negotiations.

Meanwhile, NVIDIA has ordered another 300,000 H20s from TSMC (which manufactures GPUs in its own factories) to meet the huge demand in China. These are in addition to the 600,000-700,000 already in stock and ready to ship to China.