WASHINGTON: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang came to Washington on Tuesday with a message for the Trump administration: the US can win the AI battle if the world, including China’s massive developer base, runs on Nvidia systems. In his address at the first Nvidia developers’ conference held in Washington, Huang walked a fine line between praising President Donald Trump, whose “America First” agenda Huang credited with spurring greater investment in US manufacturing and AI leadership, and risking further antagonism of China.

Huang said the artificial intelligence (AI) chip leader will build seven new supercomputers for the US Department of Energy and had US$500 billion (RM2.1 trillion) in bookings for advanced chips, but also lamented that the Chinese government has shut it out of its market. Nvidia is at the core of the global AI rollout, and it is striking deals around the world while also navigating a US-China trade war that could determine which country’s technology is most used around the world.

Trump is touring Asia ahead of an expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping today where China’s use of Nvidia’s chips could be a key issue.

“We want America to win this AI race. No doubt about that,” Huang said. “We want the world to be built on American tech stack. Absolutely the case. But we also need to be in China to win their developers. A policy that causes America to lose half of the world’s AI developers is not beneficial long term, it hurts us more.”

Huang said his company had not applied for US export licences to send its newest chips to China because of the Chinese position. “They’ve made it very clear that they don’t want Nvidia to be there right now,” he said at a news conference during the company’s GTC developers event. “I hope that will change in the future because I think China is a very important market.”

US administrations have swung back and forth on allowing Nvidia’s advanced chips into China, vacillating on whether access would make China more dependent on the US technology or give its military and tech companies a competitive boost.

Huang praised Trump while announcing new products and deals. These included network technology that will let Nvidia AI chips work with quantum computers, a telecom deal with Finland’s Nokia and self-driving car technology with Uber and Stellantis.

The supercomputers Nvidia is building for the Energy Department will in part help the US maintain and develop its nuclear weapons arsenal. The supercomputers will also be used to research alternative energy sources such as nuclear fusion. The largest of the supercomputers for the Department of Energy will be built with Oracle and contain 100,000 of Nvidia’s Blackwell chips.

“Putting the weight of the nation behind pro-energy growth completely changed the game,“ Huang said. “If this didn’t happen, we could have been in a bad situation, and I want to thank President Trump for that.”

Nvidia shares closed 5% higher at US$201.03 on Tuesday.

Blake Anderson, an associate portfolio manager at Carson Group, estimated that one of the supercomputers, dubbed “Solstice,” could alone feature Nvidia chips worth about US$3 billion to US$4 billion. However, since federal customers are likely to receive discounts, the pricing could vary from the US$30,000 to US$40,000 price tag Blackwell chips tend to carry, Anderson added. Nvidia declined to comment on the size of the Energy Department deals, and the Energy Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Among the deals Huang discussed, Nvidia and Nokia will target the AI communications market. Nvidia will invest US$1 billion for a 2.9% stake in Nokia and it also introduced a new product line called Arc, designed to work with telecommunications equipment. Huang said Nvidia will work with Nokia to improve the power efficiency of the company’s base stations for 6G, the next generation of wireless data technology.

“We’re going to take this new technology and we’ll be able to upgrade millions of base stations around the world,” Huang said.

Nvidia also announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies, a company that works closely with the US government, to improve logistics for companies.

Nvidia announced a new self-driving car technology platform called Hyperion. Huang said that Nvidia is partnering with Uber to create a network of robotaxis.

“These announcements all show Nvidia’s ability to extend its reach beyond its core data centre customers,” said Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson. “While these projects pale in comparison to the capex by the hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta, they could create new markets for Nvidia down the line.”

Trump in his second term at first restricted exports of Nvidia’s AI chips designed for the China market before reversing course in July. Huang has argued that Nvidia needs access to some US$50 billion in potential sales from the Chinese market to fund US-based research and development to maintain his company’s edge. – Reuters

 The Sun Malaysia