The chip that the Trump administration this month has started allowing Nvidia, America’s leading chip maker, to sell to China has become a focal point in the increasingly tense competition for ascendancy over artificial intelligence.

特朗普政府从本月开始允许美国领先的芯片制造商英伟达向中国出售特供版芯片，这款芯片已成为竞争日益激烈的人工智能领域的一个焦点。

The administration’s decision amounted to a major reversal of a yearslong effort by Washington to restrain China’s technological and military progress by controlling its access to advanced American technology.

特朗普政府做出该决定是一个重大逆转。美国政府多年来一直在努力限制中国获得先进的美国技术，以放慢中国在技术和军事领域取得进展的速度。

In China, tech industry insiders and analysts said the Nvidia chip would help sustain the country’s A.I. progress while Nvidia’s Chinese rivals like Huawei race to improve domestic alternatives.

中国高科技行业的业内人士和分析师称，在华为等英伟达的中国竞争对手竞相改进国产替代品之际，英伟达芯片将有助于维持中国人工智能领域的进展。

But on Thursday, the Chinese government’s internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, said that it had summoned Nvidia to explain security risks associated with the chip, including whether it had the ability to track users’ locations.

但中国政府的互联网监管机构——国家互联网信息办公室周四称已约谈英伟达，让其解释与中国特供版芯片有关的安全风险，包括该芯片是否能追踪用户的位置。

The move underscores the political sensitivities surrounding the chip, a lower performance but still coveted model known as the H20.

中国特供版芯片H20的性能不是最强的，但中国公司仍渴望得到它。中国国家网信办的做法凸显了围绕着这款芯片的政治敏感性。

英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋本月在北京出席了中国国际供应链醋鸡博览会开幕式。

Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, sees the ability to sell the H20 in China as crucial to the company’s efforts to hold on to its position as the leading maker of the infrastructure that powers advanced artificial intelligence.

英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋认为，能在中国销售H20芯片对于公司维持其作为先进人工智能基础设施领先制造商的地位至关重要。

For China, access to the chip promises to enable its tech companies to continue their path in developing cutting edge artificial intelligence systems. At the same time, China’s chipmakers are racing to close the gap with Nvidia and their other American rivals.

对中国来说，获得H20芯片将让本土科技企业继续在尖端人工智能系统开发上取得进展。与此同时，中国的芯片制造商正在全力缩小它们与英伟达和其他美国竞争对手的差距。

At China’s annual A.I. conference in Shanghai this week, the mood among China’s tech companies was triumphant. Their message: Despite Washington’s attempts to slow its gains, China was at the forefront of the global A.I. wave.

中国本周在上海举行了世界人工智能年度大会，中国的科技企业在会上传递了一个得意洋洋的信息：尽管美国试图遏制中国的技术进步，中国仍处于全球人工智能浪潮的前沿。

At the same gathering last year, the question was how China could push its A.I. industry forward without access to American technology, including Nvidia’s chips and ChatGPT, the chatbot by OpenAI, a Silicon Valley company. But this year, the focus was on how far Chinese technology had come, and Beijing’s ambition to influence the global development of artificial intelligence.

去年的世界人工智能大会讨论的问题是，如果不能再获得美国技术（包括英伟达的芯片和硅谷公司OpenAI的聊天机器人ChatGPT），中国将如何推进国内人工智能产业的发展。而今年的会议焦点是中国已在技术上取得了多大进展，以及中国政府影响全球人工智能发展的雄心。

Huawei displayed a massive cluster of chips meant to compete directly with Nvidia in running the calculations that power advanced A.I. systems. The Chinese internet company Alibaba unveiled a pair of A.I.-enabled eyeglasses. And dozens of start-ups showed off robots, which mixed with crowds on the exhibition floor, danced to songs by Lady Gaga and competed in boxing matches.

华为在会上展示了一系列旨在与英伟达直接竞争的芯片，这些芯片为先进人工智能系统提供算力。中国互联网公司阿里巴巴发布了一款AI眼镜。数十家初创公司展示了各种各样的机器人，它们与展厅里的人群混在一起，随着Lady Gaga的歌声起舞，有的还进行拳击比赛。

本周在上海举行的世界人工智能大会上，数十家初创企业展示了机器人，包括这两个进行拳击比赛的机器人，它们来自杭州的宇树机器人。一名与会者操作Noetix Robotics制造的机器人。

Premier Li Qiang, China’s highest-ranking official after Xi Jinping, said in remarks at the conference that artificial intelligence should become a global public good, according to a summary published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

据中国外交部发布的讲话纪要，位置仅次于习近平的高级官员、中国国务院总理李强在大会上致开幕词时表示，人工智能应当成为全球公共产品。

China was willing to “share development experiences and technological products to help countries around the world,” Mr. Li said.

中国“愿共享发展经验和技术产品，帮助世界各国”，李强说。

His remarks aimed to position China as a ready collaborator. By contrast, a few days earlier, President Trump had outlined a plan for A.I. that declared the United States should command the global race to develop the technology.

此言是把中国定位为一个准备合作的国家。相比之下，美国总统特朗普公布了一项人工智能发展计划，明确表示美国应该主导人工智能技术研发的全球竞赛。

The move by China was “a propaganda win,” said Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School.

中国的做法是“一个宣传上的胜利”，耶鲁大学法学院蔡中曾中国中心的高级研究员萨姆·萨克斯说。

“The first sentence of the American A.I. action plan is about global dominance, while the tagline of the conference in China is ‘global solidarity,’” Ms. Sacks said.

“美国人工智能行动计划的第一句话就是关于全球主导地位，而中国在这次大会上的口号是‘全球团结’，”萨克斯说。

Over the past year, Chinese companies have embraced making their systems available publicly. Alibaba and DeepSeek, a Chinese start-up, have released open-source A.I. systems that rank among the world’s top performers. This month, the Beijing start-ups Moonshot AI and Z.ai, formerly Zhipu AI, published details of new models that the companies said excelled at coding and math.

过去一年里，中国企业接受了向外界公开它们的人工智能系统的做法。阿里巴巴和中国初创公司DeepSeek都已发布了能力位居世界前列的开源人工智能系统。本月，北京的两家初创公司发布了它们新模型的细节（月之暗面发布的叫Kimi，智谱发布的叫Z.ai），公司称它们的新模型在编程和数学上表现出色。

中国初创公司DeepSeek今年初发布的一个人工智能系统震惊了科技界，公司称该系统的成本仅为美国竞争对手的一小部分。

The Trump administration’s decision to reverse course and allow Nvidia to sell the H20 will help China’s leading A.I. companies buy time at a crucial moment, experts said.

专家们称，特朗普政府政策逆转，允许英伟达向中国出售H20芯片的决定将有助于中国主要的人工智能公司争取到关键时间。

Chinese A.I. companies will buy the Nvidia chips to keep improving their technology in the near term while they wait for Chinese chipmakers to make adequate substitutes, said Lucy Xinyi Chen, a venture investor and a founder of the Beijing data analysis company GrowingIO.

风险投资人、北京的数据分析公司GrowingIO的创始人陈欣怡说，中国的人工智能公司为了继续技术升级，将在短期内购买英伟达的芯片，同时等待中国的芯片制造商推出足够好的替代品。

“The big model and infrastructure companies are certain to be buying more chips right now, which will only help take their models to the next level,” Ms. Chen said.

“大模型和基础设施公司此时此刻当然正在购买更多的芯片，那只会帮助它们把模型建得更好，”陈欣怡说。

Nvidia supplies chips and software to companies around the world to power A.I. systems. Chinese companies have continued to acquire them through intermediaries and a thriving black market despite the yearslong bid by officials in Washington to hold back China’s technological and military progress by cutting off the flow of these chips to China.

英伟达为全球各地的公司提供人工智能系统需要的算力芯片和软件。尽管美国政府的官员们多年来一直试图通过阻止这些芯片流入中国来放慢中国的技术和军事进步速度，但中国公司也一直通过中间商或在活跃的黑市上继续购买这些芯片。

At the same time, the Chinese government has spent billions of dollars to push Chinese companies like Huawei to make chips that perform as well as Nvidia’s.

与此同时，中国政府已为推动华为等中国公司生产性能与英伟达相当的芯片投入了数千亿人民币。

Huawei’s chips remain expensive, inefficient and prone to defects. But some said the presence of Nvidia’s chips in the Chinese market would spur Huawei to improve its technology faster.

华为的芯片造价仍很高、效率仍低，而且容易出错。但一些人说，英伟达在中国市场销售芯片将促使华为更快地改进自己的技术。

“Open competition is good for everyone,” said William Xu, deputy secretary-general at the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Industry Association.

“公开的竞争对大家都有好处，”上海市人工智能行业协会副秘书长徐文伟（音）说。

在过去十年里，中国政府集中投入资源，致力于成为人工智能领域的超级大国，其中包括对初创企业和研究实验室的支持。