Nvidia’s two-ton AI systems not easily smuggled to China, CEO says

Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang expressed confidence in his company’s trade partners and said there’s no evidence of its prized semiconductors being diverted to the Chinese market.

Nvidia’s hardware is too large to be easily smuggled across borders and its customers are aware of the rules and self-monitoring, Huang told Bloomberg News in Taipei.

Its latest flagship products are sold as multimillion-dollar integrated systems, which can contain as many as 72 graphics processing units and 36 processors. The Biden administration set up so-called AI diffusion rules to prevent shipments to other countries being diverted to China, which President Donald Trump has decided to cancel.

“There’s no evidence of any AI chip diversion. These are massive systems. The Grace Blackwell system is nearly two tons, and so you’re not going to be putting that in your pocket or your backpack any time soon,” Huang, 62, said. “The important thing is that the countries and the companies that we sell to recognise that diversion is not allowed and everybody would like to continue to buy Nvidia technology. And so they monitor themselves very carefully and they’re quite careful about that.”

Huang spoke days after joining a US delegation to the Middle East led by the president, lauding the opening up of trade of Nvidia’s hardware. The scrapping of the Biden-era rules will help the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia acquire more of Nvidia’s industry-leading technology and expand their capabilities in artificial intelligence (AI).

The issue of whether any Nvidia AI chip shipments violate US trade sanctions targeting China has led to a probe in Singapore, and remains a live topic of concern. Huang reiterated his opposition to trade limitations.