Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is going with President Donald Trump on his trip to China after all. That should be good news for the chip maker if it unlocks large-scale sales to Chinese companies.
Investors certainly think so—the shares were up 2.4% in premarket trading and on track for a record close.
Trump confirmed Huang as one of the group of executives accompanying him on the visit to China, which begins Wednesday, after widespread media reports on Tuesday that the Nvidia chief hadn’t been invited.
“CNBC incorrectly reported that the Great Jensen Huang, of Nvidia, was not invited to the incredible gathering of the World’s Greatest Businessmen/women proudly going to China. In actuality, Jensen is currently on Air Force One and, unless I ask him to leave, which is highly unlikely, CNBC’s reporting is incorrect,” Trump posted on Truth Social overnight.
The big hope for Nvidia shareholders is that Trump’s two-day summit with Xi Jinping will help unlock large-scale sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips in China. The H200 chips are specifically designed to meet U.S. restrictions on exports to China, which prohibit the company from selling its most powerful processors to Chinese customers.
After facing multiple regulatory and political obstacles in both Beijing and Washington, Huang said in March that the company had restarted manufacturing of its H200 processors for sale in China and that it had received orders from many customers. However, Nvidia hasn’t said how much revenue it expects from Chinese sales.
Chinese companies would be willing to buy around 1.5 million of the H200 chips, representing roughly $30 billion in revenue, according to KeyBanc analyst John Vinh. Nvidia has agreed to pass on a 25% cut of the sales to the U.S. government.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com
