Nvidia says H20 export controls didn’t stop China’s AI progress — claims 'they only stifled U.S. economic and technology leadership'

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Chipmaker believes that "America’s full-stack platform must remain the global standard.”

Nvidia H200 Hopper
(Image credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia shared an opinion piece by Aaron Ginn, co-founder of AI company Hydra Host, stating that despite the U.S.’s export controls on Nvidia’s H20 chips, China continued to achieve AI breakthroughs. Nvidia shared Ginn’s thoughts on the matter on X, saying that Washington’s bans only held it back from expanding its influence.

“H20 export controls didn’t slow China — they only stifled U.S. economic and technology leadership,” Nvidia said on the social media platform. “For the U.S. to win the AI race, America’s full-stack platform must remain the global standard.” It then linked to Ginn’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.

Ginn argues in his commentary that “doubling down on failed GPU export controls falls apart under scrutiny and real-world conditions.” He first points out that despite the White House banning the export of H20 chips from April to July this year, China continued making advancements in AI technologies. Furthermore, it’s been proven that demand for these advanced semiconductors is so high that Chinese companies have smuggled a billion dollars’ worth of Nvidia AI GPUs in just the past three months alone.

While Nvidia’s high-end chips are indeed crucial for delivering the performance needed to run, the Hydra Host co-founder says that the company’s CUDA platform — which includes programming models and AI toolkits — is far more important and cannot be easily replicated by its Chinese competitors. He even criticized former President Biden’s AI diffusion rule, saying that it lumped together advanced nations like Portugal and Switzerland with countries in turmoil, such as Yemen and Ukraine. Nvidia has also previously criticized this plan, warning that it could backfire against the United States, as it would allow non-American companies to set the global standards for AI technology.

This opinion is pretty much in line with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s stance on export control — that it was a failure — and that the U.S. should go beyond preventing its rivals from acquiring its technologies to stay ahead in the AI race. However, other experts argue that the AI ban should remain, as it is a requirement to complement Washington’s strategy of building the most powerful AI chips in America.

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Jowi Morales
Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Zaranthos
    I'll take information Nvidia shares related to them making mind bending profits if they can sell more product to one of the largest economies in the world with a grain of salt. Nvidia obviously wants to make as much money as possible, which is fine, but there are clearly geopolitical reasons related the the race to AI dominance driving this. Whether it's working or not is up for debate but there are clearly reasons it's being done.

    The growing pains of the AI dominance race aren't all fun though. Who thinks spending nearly $2000 to get a high end gaming GPU that gobbles massive amounts of ever increasingly expensive electricity is fun(electricity prices also driven by AI)? Then if you do manage to afford buying it you have to worry about it catching fire and burning up your gaming rig. Hopefully the good outweighs the bad as AI continues through the growing pains.
    Reply
  • jlake3
    The WSJ op-ed is paywalled, so I can't see his exact words, but it seems like there's an attempt to equate Nvidia's leadership and influence with U.S. leadership and influence. While Nvidia is a US-based company, they employ a much smaller number of people than something like automotive and the manufacturing all happens offshore, so very few Americans feel like they've got a stake in it or are benefiting from Nvidia's insane profits. Many feel like these profits are coming at their expense, even.

    CUDA is not "America's full-stack platform", it's Nvidia's. If the most advanced models get developed elsewhere but are dependent on buying Nvidia hardware fabbed overseas and sold at monopoly prices to run them and the US government can't/won't apply export controls, then the US won't have collectively "Won the AI race", Nvidia will have won the AI race.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    Chipmaker believes that "America’s full-stack platform must remain the global standard.”

    corpo says its product needs to be standard.

    literally any company mentality as they want to make more and more $ as they are part of that standard.
    Reply
  • Greywulffcvg
    Here is Ginn's WSJ letter:

    Matt Pottinger, Liza Tobin and I share a common goal: The U.S. must win the artificial-intelligence race. Yet their argument for doubling down on failed GPU export controls falls apart under scrutiny and real-world conditions.

    In their Aug. 11 letter, they write that “the controls on Nvidia’s H20 chips appear to have been working until CEO Jensen Huang’s lobbying secured a reversal.” But Nvidia hasn’t shipped H20s to China since the ban. The Commerce Department approved exports this week under a new deal, which returns 15% of sales revenue to the American people. As I noted in my op-ed, Z.AI’s breakthroughs rely on more-advanced chips than the H20, and DeepSeek released new models despite U.S. policy.

    Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Tobin suggest that Nvidia’s product can be reverse-engineered easily. Yet the company is more like Apple or Boeing than Intel or AMD, with its value in its software stack and integrated design. Without CUDA—the company’s computing platform—Nvidia hardware is an expensive paper weight, like an iPhone without iOS. Buying a PlayStation doesn’t guarantee that you have games to play.

    Mr. Pottinger and Ms. Tobin likewise confuse buying a semiconductor with making one. Citing a foundry equipment maker as proof that China can replicate Nvidia is like saying owning a PlayStation means you’re Sony. This oversimplification is a trillion-dollar category mistake.

    Both lament the Trump administration’s repeal of the Biden-era “diffusion rule”—which lumped Portugal and Switzerland in with Yemen and Ukraine for GPU access—and oppose Mr. Trump’s policy of exporting American AI. Yet to lead in this space we need policies rooted in technical reality and strategy, not ones that equate sandy beaches and luxury watches with failed states and war zones that weaken American soft and economic power around the world.

    Aaron Ginn
    Boulder, Colo.
    Reply
  • atmapuri
    If you zone out 75% of the world market to keep your leadership, you create a safe-haven for competition that will serve the market 4x your size. You basically show them: "This is what you need to do and now you try it, we will not interfere. "
    Reply