The White House on 6 August reversed an April prohibition on exports of certain artificial-intelligence chips to China, authorising Nvidia to resume shipments of its H20 processors and allowing Advanced Micro Devices to sell its MI308 accelerators. People briefed on the decision said Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang personally lobbied President Donald Trump, arguing that the parts lag the United States’ top-tier GPUs and pledging to invest about US$500 billion in domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Beijing responded by intensifying scrutiny of the very products now cleared for export. China’s Cyberspace Administration summoned Nvidia on 31 July to explain alleged backdoors and remote-tracking functions in the H20 line, according to official notices. Analysts said the move signals that China wants to demonstrate it is an informed, not a ‘blind’, technology buyer even as it remains a crucial customer for U.S. chipmakers. Separately, the U.S. Department of Justice disclosed on 6 August that two Chinese nationals were arrested in California on 2 August for allegedly attempting to smuggle “tens of millions of dollars” worth of high-performance AI processors to China in violation of the Export Control Reform Act. Court filings indicate the hardware—believed to be Nvidia’s flagship H100 GPUs—was routed through Singapore and Malaysia to disguise its final destination. Nvidia has rejected calls from some U.S. policymakers to add software ‘kill switches’ or hardware tracking tools to its products, saying such features would create security vulnerabilities. The company maintains that it sells mainly to vetted original-equipment manufacturers and that diversion risks are small, even as demand in China remains strong amid easing export rules and heightened geopolitical tension.