Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices are expected to pay the United States 15 percent of the money they take in from selling artificial intelligence chips to China, as part of a highly unusual financial agreement with the Trump administration.

英伟达与超威半导体(AMD)预计将把对华人工智能芯片销售额的15%支付给美国政府，这是与特朗普政府达成的极不寻常的财务协议的一部分。

The deal, which was described by three people familiar with the agreement who spoke anonymously because they didn’t have permission to discuss it publicly, comes a month after Nvidia received permission to sell a version of its artificial intelligence chips to China.

据三名知情人士透露，该协议在英伟达获准向中国销售人工智能芯片简化版一个月后达成的。由于他们无权公开讨论此事，这三人要求不具名。

While the Trump administration publicly said a month ago that it was giving the green light to Nvidia to sell an A.I. chip called H20 to China, it did not actually issue the licenses making those sales possible.

尽管特朗普政府一个月前公开宣布批准英伟达向中国销售名为H20的人工智能芯片，但并没有实际发放销售许可。

On Wednesday, Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, met with President Trump at the White House and agreed to give the federal government its 15 percent cut, essentially making the federal government a partner in Nvidia’s business in China, said the people familiar with the deal. The Commerce Department began granting licenses for A.I. chip sales two days later, these people said.

知情人士表示，英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋上周三在白宫会见特朗普总统时，同意向联邦政府支付15%的收入分成，这实质上使得联邦政府成为英伟达在华业务的合作伙伴。这些人士表示，两天后，商务部开始发放人工智能芯片销售许可证。

Though Mr. Huang has led negotiations with the White House, Nvidia isn’t the only company that sells A.I. chips to China. AMD sells an A.I. chip called the MI308 that in April was also barred from selling to the Chinese by the Trump administration.

尽管黄仁勋一直主导与白宫的谈判，但英伟达并非唯一向中国销售人工智能芯片的公司。AMD也在销售一款名为MI308的人工智能芯片，同样于今年4月被特朗普政府禁止向中国销售。

There are few precedents for the Commerce Department agreeing to grant licenses for exports in exchange for a share of revenue. But the unorthodox payments are consistent with Mr. Trump’s increasingly interventionist role in international business deals involving American companies. In June, the administration approved investment by Nippon Steel, a Japanese company, in U.S. Steel in a deal that included a so-called golden share in the company, a rarely used practice where the government takes a stake in a business.

美国商务部以收入分成作为发放出口许可条件的做法几无先例。但这种非传统的支付模式符合特朗普在美国企业的国际商业交易中日益强化的干预者角色。今年6月，政府批准日本制铁收购美国钢铁公司的交易中就包含赋予政府“黄金股”这种罕见的在企业中持股的形式。

The administration is also using tariffs as a stick to bring manufacturing to the United States. Last week, Mr. Trump said that tech companies would have to pay a 100 percent tariff on semiconductors made abroad, unless they invested in the United States.

特朗普政府还在利用关税作为将制造业带回美国的政策工具。上周特朗普表示，除非科技企业在美国本土投资，否则将对它们在海外生产的半导体征收100%关税。

The deal agreed to last week could funnel more than $2 billion to the U.S. government. Nvidia was expected to sell more than $15 billion worth of its H20 chip to China through the end of the year, and AMD was expected to sell $800 million, according to Bernstein Research.

上周达成的芯片分成协议预计将为美国政府带来逾20亿美元的收入。根据伯恩斯坦研究公司的数据，英伟达年底前对华H20芯片销售额预计超150亿美元，AMD则有望实现8亿美元销售额。

The Commerce Department, White House and AMD didn’t provide comment on Sunday.

商务部、白宫和AMD周日均未置评。

Ken Brown, a spokesman for Nvidia, said that the company follows the U.S. government’s rules for sales abroad. “While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” he said.

英伟达发言人肯·布朗表示，该公司遵守美国政府的海外销售规定。“虽然我们已经好几个月没有向中国供应H20芯片了，但我们希望出口管制规则能让美国企业在中国和全球保持竞争力，”他说。

The deal to license A.I. chips caused immediate outcry among national security experts who have been opposed to A.I. chip sales to China. They worry that the Trump administration’s decision to leverage export licenses for money will encourage Beijing to pressure other companies to make similar arrangements to loosen restrictions on other technology like semiconductor manufacturing tools and memory chips.

该许可协议立即引起了反对向中国销售人工智能芯片的国家安全专家的强烈抗议。他们担心，特朗普政府利用出口许可证换取资金的决定将激励北京向其他公司施压，要求做出类似安排，以放宽对半导体制造工具和存储芯片等其他关键技术的限制。

“This is an own goal and will incentivize the Chinese to up their game and pressure the administration for more concessions,” said Liza Tobin, who previously served as China director at the National Security Council during the Trump and Biden administrations. “This is the Trump playbook applied in exactly the wrong domain. You’re selling our national security for corporate profits.”

“这是一个乌龙球，将激励中国加大施压力度，迫使政府作出更多让步，”曾先后在特朗普和拜登政府的国家安全委员会担任中国事务主任职务的丽莎·托宾说。“这是特朗普的策略用在了完全错误的领域。这是为了公司利润出卖我们的国家安全。”

The Financial Times earlier reported on the deal between the chipmakers and the Trump administration.

《金融时报》早前率先报道了芯片制造商与特朗普政府达成的此项协议。

Clearing the way for selling A.I. chips to China was a dramatic about face by the Trump administration, which banned their sales to China in April. The administration restricted exports of those chips because of concerns that the technology could be used to close the gap between the United States and China in the development of artificial intelligence.

特朗普政府此次为对华销售人工智能芯片开绿灯是一次戏剧性的政策逆转——它曾在今年4月颁布对华芯片销售禁令。当时之所以限制这些芯片的出口，是因为出于担忧这种技术可能被用来缩小美中在人工智能领域的发展差距。

The administration’s reversal on A.I. chip sales has been divisive because it has major implications for the race between the United States and China to develop artificial intelligence. Nvidia’s chips are regarded as ideal for running some of the calculations that power A.I. and have better performance than those offered by its Chinese rival, Huawei.

政府在人工智能芯片销售上的政策逆转一直存在争议，因为它对美中在人工智能发展方面的竞争具有重大影响。英伟达的芯片被认为是运行某些人工智能计算的理想选择，性能优于其中国竞争对手华为的同类产品。

The Trump administration has said that it will continue to prevent China from buying Nvidia’s most advanced chips. It has said that the H20 chip, which was made specifically for China and was approved for sale by the Biden administration, is less powerful than the chips the company sells to U.S. businesses and allies.

特朗普政府表示，将继续阻止中国购买英伟达最先进的芯片。它表示，专门为中国制造并经拜登政府批准销售的H20芯片，其性能弱于该公司销售给美国企业和盟友的芯片。

Mr. Huang persuaded Mr. Trump to approve A.I. chip sales by arguing that preventing them would only hurt U.S. tech companies. He has said a ban would allow Huawei to dominate sales of A.I. chips in China, the world’s largest semiconductor market, and pump the money it makes into research and development to close the gap with Nvidia, AMD and others. Instead, he urged Mr. Trump to let Nvidia and AMD compete for those sales, so that they can use the money they make there to build their businesses.

黄仁勋通过论证“禁令只会重创美国科技企业”成功说服特朗普批准AI芯片销售。他警告，禁令将使华为独占全球最大半导体市场——中国的AI芯片市场，并将其利润投入研发以缩小与英伟达、AMD等企业的技术差距。相反，他力促特朗普允许英伟达与AMD参与市场竞争，从而能够利用在中国市场获得的收益反哺企业发展。

“The American tech stack should be the global standard, just as the American dollar is the standard by which every country builds on,” Mr. Huang said during a podcast recorded in July with the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank.

“美国的技术栈应当成为全球标准，正如美元是各国经济依托的基准一样，”黄仁勋7月在“特殊竞争研究项目”(Special Competitive Studies Project)智库录制的一期播客节目中说。

But many national security officials focused on China disagree. In July, two former national security officials in the Trump administration, Matt Pottinger and David Feith, and 18 other people with a mix of national security and economics expertise wrote a letter to the administration calling its policy change “a strategic misstep that endangers the United States’ economic and military edge in artificial intelligence.”

然而许多专注中国事务的国家安全官员持反对立场。7月，特朗普政府前国家安全官员博明(Matt Pottinger)和戴维·菲斯联合其他18位兼具国家安全和经济专长的专家致信政府，直指政策逆转是“危及美国在人工智能领域经济军事优势的战略失策”。

The group said that the H20 would be “a potent accelerator of China’s frontier A.I. capabilities, not an outdated chip.”

他们表示，H20芯片将是“中国前沿人工智能能力的强大加速器，绝非过时的芯片”。

Nvidia’s wins in Washington have brought it headaches in Beijing. Late last month, China’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, summoned Mr. Huang to a meeting over the possibility that the H20 chip could have “backdoor security risks.” Chinese state media has discouraged companies from buying the H20 over the issue.

英伟达在华盛顿的胜利却给它在北京带来了麻烦。上个月底，中国的互联网监管机构——国家网信办约谈黄仁勋，质疑H20芯片可能存在“漏洞后门安全风险”。中国官媒随即发文警示国内企业谨慎采购。

Last week, Nvidia published a blog saying that its A.I. chips don’t have back doors. It also condemned a congressional effort to pass a law known as the Chip Security Act, which would require it to track its chips as a way to prevent the technology from being smuggled to China.

上周，英伟达发布了一篇博客，称其人工智能芯片没有后门。它还谴责了国会试图通过《芯片安全法案》，该法案要求芯片溯源以防止技术走私到中国。

“There is no such thing as a ‘good’ secret backdoor — only dangerous vulnerabilities that need to be eliminated,” the company said.

“不存在所谓‘好’的秘密后门——只有需要消除的危险漏洞，”该公司表示。