SEATTLE — On a recent Friday afternoon, Jensen Huang, CEO of the chipmaker Nvidia, slipped into the White House to meet President Donald Trump for the first time. There was no fanfare, and he left without a single public photo taken of the two.

西雅图——最近一个周五的下午，芯片制造商英伟达的首席执行官黄仁勋悄然进入白宫，与特朗普总统首次会面。没有大张旗鼓的宣传，他离开时，两人也没有公开合影。

Two weeks earlier, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella had a lengthy lunch with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. They dined with little fuss and also barely made the news.

两周前，微软首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉与特朗普在佛罗里达州的马阿拉歌庄园共进了长时间的午餐。他们的用餐没有引起太多关注，也几乎没有成为新闻。

Neither executive joined his big tech contemporaries who stood ramrod behind Trump at his inauguration. Instead, the two were on entirely different continents: Nadella was traveling to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, while Huang was wrapping up a visit to see suppliers and employees in Taiwan and China.

在特朗普的就职典礼上，这两位高管没有像其他大型科技公司高管那样，笔直地站在他身后。实际上，他们两人当时身处完全不同的大陆：纳德拉正在前往瑞士达沃斯参加世界经济论坛，而黄仁勋正结束在台湾和中国对供应商和员工的拜访。

The absence at the inauguration of the chief executives of two of the world’s most valuable companies was perhaps the most visual sign that some companies were trying a lower-key approach as Trump returned to Washington, even as some peers took to flamboyant displays of courtship.

全球最有价值的两家公司的首席执行官缺席就职典礼，这或许是最直观的迹象，表明在特朗普返回华盛顿后，一些公司正试图采取低调的做法，即使一些同行采取浮夸的方式示好。

For companies like Microsoft and Nvidia, which unlike many of their peers haven’t angered Trump, “it is almost business as usual,” said S. Somasegar, a former Microsoft executive now at Madrona Venture Group who speaks regularly with Nadella.

不同于许多科技公司，微软和英伟达并没有激怒特朗普，对它们这样的公司来说，“几乎是一切照旧，”微软前高管、现任职于马德罗纳创业集团的索马塞加说，他经常与纳德拉交谈。

While Microsoft and Nvidia share a quieter approach to Trump, their footprints in Washington are the polar opposite. Microsoft, on the cusp of its 50th anniversary and schooled by its antitrust fight more than two decades ago, is arguably tech’s savviest player on policy issues, with a strong lobbying arm and executives who have nurtured contacts in both political parties.

虽然微软和英伟达与特朗普打交道的方式都比较低调，但它们在华盛顿的足迹却截然相反。微软即将迎来成立50周年，在二十多年前的反垄断斗争中积累了丰富的经验，可以说是科技界在政策问题上最精明的参与者，拥有强大的游说力量，以及在两党都有人脉关系的高管。

Nvidia, on the other hand, is a rookie in Washington. Its profile has grown rapidly in the last few years, thanks to its overwhelming control of the specialized chips that other tech companies need to build big artificial intelligence systems.

而英伟达则是华盛顿的新秀。在过去几年里，它的知名度迅速提升，这得益于它对专用芯片的强大控制，这些芯片是其他科技公司用来构建大型人工智能系统所必需的。

The stakes for both companies are high. The new administration has to finalize rules about the sale of Nvidia chips and building Microsoft data centers overseas. Microsoft also has an array of other concerns, including cybersecurity, the regulation of AI systems and the electricity demands to power data centers. After a breakthrough development by the startup DeepSeek, Nvidia also faces a risk that the administration could further curtail sales of its chips to China.

这两家公司都与新政府利益攸关。新政府必须敲定有关英伟达芯片销售和微软在海外建设数据中心的规定。微软还面临一系列其他问题，包括网络安全、人工智能系统的监管以及数据中心的电力需求。在初创公司DeepSeek取得突破性进展后，英伟达还面临政府可能进一步限制其芯片对华销售的风险。

“Everyone has to come to the table, and they will do it in different ways, because as the saying goes, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” said Kevin Madden, a senior partner at Penta Group, a global strategy firm, and a former senior strategist on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.

“每个人都必须参与进来，他们会以不同的方式这样做，因为俗话说得好，如果你不坐在桌前，你就在菜单上，”全球战略公司Penta Group高级合伙人、米特·罗姆尼2012年总统竞选活动前高级策略师凯文·马登说。

Their quieter strategies were on display around the inauguration. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, attended a reception for Cabinet members hosted by Vice President JD Vance. A week later, Smith and Nadella went to a black-tie dinner that was hosted by the Alfalfa Club and attended by Cabinet nominees Howard Lutnick, Linda McMahon and Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota and Nadella’s old mentor at Microsoft. Nvidia’s vice president of external affairs, Ned Finkle, and some of Nvidia’s policy staff members also attended inauguration celebrations.

他们的低调战略在就职典礼前后展现出来。微软主席布拉德·史密斯出席了副总统JD·万斯为内阁成员举办的招待会。一周后，史密斯和纳德拉参加了苜蓿草俱乐部举办的正式晚宴，出席的还有内阁提名人霍华德·卢特尼克、琳达·麦克马洪和北达科他州前州长、纳德拉在微软的昔日导师道格·伯格姆。英伟达负责对外事务的副总裁内德·芬克尔和该公司的一些政策工作人员也出席了就职庆祝活动。

Like other tech companies, Microsoft donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, but it did so after its peers. It gave $500,000 to the inaugural fund for the first Trump administration, as well as the Joe Biden inauguration in 2021. (Nvidia did not donate to the inaugural fund.)

与其他科技公司一样，微软也向特朗普的就职基金捐赠了100万美元，但它是在其他公司之后捐赠的。微软向特朗普首届政府的就职基金以及2021年乔·拜登的就职基金捐赠了50万美元。（英伟达没有向就职基金捐款。）

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, had dinner during a much-anticipated trip to Mar-a-Lago in mid-December, Instagram posts documenting it made the gossip pages.

12月中旬，亚马逊创始人杰夫·贝索斯和未婚妻劳伦·桑切斯在备受瞩目的马阿拉歌庄园之旅期间共进晚餐，Instagram上的帖子记录了这一过程，并登上了八卦版面。

Microsoft leaders met with Trump’s staff, Cabinet appointees and technology advisers in advance of Nadella. When they arrived at Mar-a-Lago, they knew Trump’s priorities and concerns.

在纳德拉与特朗普会面之前，微软高管已与特朗普的幕僚、内阁任命人员和技术顾问有过会面。当纳德拉等高管抵达马阿拉歌时，他们已经事先了解了特朗普的优先事项和关注点。

They spoke about security and investing in infrastructure, and when Trump expressed concern about the safety of nuclear power — which is gaining popularity as a supplier of electricity for data centers — Nadella, Smith and Elon Musk, who joined the lunch, tried to assuage his fears, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation.

据一位知情人士透露，他们谈到了安全和投资基础设施的问题，特朗普对核电的安全性表示担忧——作为数据中心的电力供应来源，核电越来越受欢迎——纳德拉、史密斯和参加午餐会的埃隆·马斯克试图打消他的顾虑。

Nvidia’s Huang skipped Mar-a-Lago and waited nearly two weeks after the inauguration to visit the administration.

黄仁勋没有前往马阿拉歌，而是在就职典礼结束近两周后才拜访白宫。

By the time he arrived in Washington this month, it had become clear that the Trump administration could be a threat to Nvidia’s business.

当他本月抵达华盛顿时，已经很明显，特朗普政府可能对英伟达的业务构成威胁。

Lutnick, a wealthy donor to Trump who had been chosen to lead the Commerce Department, told Congress during his nomination hearing days earlier that he thought the American tech companies, including Nvidia, “need to stop helping” China.

鲁特尼克是特朗普的一位富有捐赠者，被任命为商务部部长，几天前他在提名听证会上对国会说，他认为包括英伟达在内的美国科技公司“需要停止帮助”中国。

“If they’re going to compete with us, let them compete, but stop using our tools to compete with us,” he said.

“如果他们要和我们竞争，那就让他们来，但别再利用我们的工具和我们竞争，”他说。

The comments shattered Nvidia’s hopes that Trump might usher in a lighter regulatory environment than his predecessor.

这番话打破了英伟达对特朗普可能带来比前任更宽松监管环境的希望。

Under Biden, the United States curbed the sale of Nvidia chips to China and capped the sales of its AI chips to more than 100 other countries. The expansion and enforcement of those rules fall to the Trump administration.

拜登执政期间，美国限制向中国出售英伟达芯片，并对英伟达人工智能芯片向其他100多个国家的销售设置了上限。这些规则的扩大和执行将由特朗普政府实行。

During Huang’s afternoon meeting with Trump, their first ever, Huang talked about AI policy and semiconductors. But afterward, Trump told reporters that he couldn’t say whether he would ban more of Nvidia’s chip sales to China. He added that while “it was a good meeting,” the administration still planned to put tariffs on chips made overseas, which would cut into Nvidia’s profits because its chips are made in Taiwan.

在那天下午黄仁勋与特朗普的首次会面中，黄仁勋谈到了人工智能政策和半导体。但事后，特朗普告诉记者，他不能确定是否会禁止更多英伟达芯片销往中国。他还说，虽然“这是一次很好的会面”，但政府仍计划对海外制造的芯片征收关税，这将削减英伟达的利润，因为其芯片是在台湾制造的。

In the face of White House pressure, Nvidia has been beefing up its Washington presence. Last Monday, the company, which opened its first office there last year, brought on board a Republican government affairs executive, Stewart Barber, who previously worked as an adviser to Ivanka Trump, said two people familiar with Nvidia’s office who asked for anonymity to discuss personnel.

面对白宫的压力，英伟达一直在加强其在华盛顿的影响力。上周一，据两位熟悉英伟达办公室、要求匿名讨论人事问题的人士透露，该公司聘请了共和党政府事务执行官斯图尔特·巴伯，他此前曾担任伊万卡·特朗普的顾问。英伟达去年在华盛顿开设了第一个办公室。

The company has applied to become a member of the Information Technology Industry Council, a policy group that represents most of the leading tech companies. It has also hired American Global Strategies, a geopolitical advisory group led by Robert C. O’Brien, who served as White House national security adviser for two years under Trump.

该公司已申请成为信息技术产业委员会的成员，这是一个代表大多数领先科技公司的政策团体。公司还聘请了美国全球战略公司，这是一个由罗伯特·奥布莱恩领导的地缘政治咨询集团，奥布莱恩曾在特朗普执政时期担任过两年的白宫国家安全顾问。

Nvidia’s belated expansion in Washington can also be attributed to a recognition that its newfound prominence demanded it become more engaged. In a little over a year, Nvidia’s market value has ballooned by $2 trillion, making it one of the world’s three most valuable public companies, with Microsoft and Apple.

英伟达在华盛顿开展迟来的扩大影响力行动也是因为它认识到，该公司新获得的显著地位要求它更多地参与。在一年多一点的时间里，英伟达的市值猛增了2万亿美元，使其成为与微软和苹果并列的全球三大最有价值上市公司之一。