Warren Presses Commerce to Block Nvidia China Exports

Nvidia Corp

Posted Friday, April 18, 2025 10:16 pm

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ranking Member of the Senate Banking Committee, has called on the Department of Commerce to immediately block exports of Nvidia’s H20 and other advanced AI chips to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), citing national security concerns and reports of undue influence in the administration’s export control decisions.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Warren warned that the Department’s decision to delay restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 chip exports appears linked to a $1 million-per-head dinner attended by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and President Trump. “Contrary to Nvidia’s promise to the President,” Warren wrote, “the company appears poised to help build more cutting-edge data centers in the PRC—not in the United States.”

Warren accused Nvidia of favoring PRC state-aligned firms with military ties over domestic startups and small businesses, exacerbating U.S. chip shortages while strengthening China’s AI infrastructure. “The company’s continued export of the H20 will result in the opposite outcome: more data centers for the PRC, less for the United States,” she wrote.

The Biden administration previously restricted high-bandwidth memory used in these chips, but formal limitations on the chips themselves were never finalized. Reports indicate Chinese companies, including ByteDance, have placed billion-dollar orders for over one million H20 chips.

Warren urged immediate action, warning that delays would “endanger U.S. national security and global technological leadership.”

The full letter is available [here (PDF)].

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Vol 45 No. 20 May 19, 2025

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