Trump Drops Idea of Breaking Up Nvidia Amid AI Chip Dominance

President Donald Trump said he had considered ordering the breakup of Nvidia Corp. to spur competition in artificial-intelligence chips, but abandoned the idea after aides advised that doing so would be “very hard.” Speaking at the “Winning the AI Race” summit in Washington on 23 July, Trump recounted asking what share of the market the company held and being told “100 percent,” prompting him to concede that antitrust action would be complicated. Nvidia, led by Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, has become the dominant supplier of processors used to train and run advanced AI models and recently became the first publicly traded company to top a $4 trillion valuation. The chipmaker’s outsized position has drawn regulatory scrutiny; the Justice Department under former president Joe Biden had opened an antitrust inquiry into the firm, though no formal case has been filed. Trump’s remarks offer an early signal of how his administration may handle antitrust concerns in the fast-growing AI hardware market. While the president expressed skepticism about forcibly dismantling the company, he did not rule out other measures to foster competition. Separately, the administration has eased export restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 accelerators to China. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has described the part as the company’s “fourth-best” AI chip, arguing that allowing its sale would keep Chinese developers reliant on U.S. technology while limiting access to Nvidia’s most advanced processors.