Three months after shutting down Nvidia’s artificial intelligence chip sales to China, the Trump administration has reversed course.

特朗普政府曾在三个月前禁止英伟达把人工智能芯片卖给中国，现在来了个180度大转弯。

On Monday, the Silicon Valley company said in a blog post that the U.S. government had approved sales of a China-specific A.I. chip known as the H20. Nvidia will still need licensing approval from the U.S. government to fulfill those orders, but the Trump administration “has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted,” the company said.

这家硅谷公司周一在博客上发帖称，美国政府已批准它向中国出口特供版的人工智能芯片H20。虽然英伟达在完成中国订单时仍需获得美国政府的许可证，但公司称，特朗普政府“已向英伟达保证将授予许可证”。

The decision came after Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, met last Thursday with President Trump. Mr. Huang has spent months lobbying politicians across Washington to keep China open for A.I. chip sales. China has the potential to deliver billions of dollars in sales for the world’s most valuable public company, which last week became the first to reach a $4 trillion valuation.

政府做出这个决定前，英伟达首席执行官黄仁勋曾在上周四与特朗普总统见面。在过去的几个月里，黄仁勋一直在游说华盛顿政界，让他们放松对人工智能芯片出口中国的限制。中国有为这家全球市值最高的上市公司带来数十亿美元销售额的潜力，就在上周，英伟达刚创下全球首家市值突破4万亿美元的历史纪录。

Mr. Huang has also visited China several times this year, including a trip to Beijing this week where he is scheduled to give a news conference on Wednesday.

黄仁勋今年已多次访问中国，包括本周的北京之行，他定于周三举行新闻发布会。

The Commerce Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

美国商务部和白宫没有立刻回复记者的置评请求。

The reversal has major implications for the race between the United States and China to develop artificial intelligence. It will allow Chinese tech companies to restart purchases of Nvidia’s chips, which are regarded as ideal for running some of the calculations that power A.I. Nvidia was slated to collect as much as $15 billion from sales of the H20 chip during its current fiscal year.

这一逆转对美国和中国在人工智能领域的竞争意义重大。它将允许中国的科技企业重新开始购买英伟达的芯片，这些芯片被认为最适合于进行某些人工智能计算。来自H20芯片的销售预计将在本财年为英伟达提供最高150亿美元的收入。

With the change, the Trump administration has also backed away from a signature effort to stay ahead of China in the A.I. race. The U.S. government had been concerned that the Chinese military could use A.I. chips to coordinate attacks and develop weapons and had also wanted to preserve the U.S. lead in developing A.I. systems.

这一转变也意味着特朗普政府放弃了在人工智能竞赛中确保美国领先于中国的标志性努力。美国政府曾担心中国军方利用人工智能芯片协调打击和研发武器，并希望保持美国在人工智能系统研发方面的领先地位。

In January, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Congress during his nomination hearing that he thought Nvidia and other companies “need to stop helping” China and stop allowing it to use “our tools to compete with us.”

今年1月，商务部长霍华德·卢特尼克在国会提名听证会上说，他认为英伟达和其他公司“需要停止帮助”中国，不再让中国使用“我们的工具与我们竞争”。

Mr. Lutnick reiterated those sentiments last month. “They are trying to copy our technology and in the race for A.I. supremacy, they are behind us, but they are working with a central government out to get us,” he said of Chinese companies during testimony before a House subcommittee about his department’s budget.

卢特尼克上个月曾重申过这些观点。当时他在众议院一个小组委员会对商务部预算举行的听证会上作证，在谈到中国企业时，他说，“它们试图抄袭我们的技术，虽然它们在争夺人工智能霸主地位的竞争中落后于我们，但它们为了超过我们正在与中央政府合作。”

The Trump administration’s previous restrictions on A.I. chip sales had posed a threat to Nvidia. Mr. Huang considers selling chips to China vital to Nvidia’s future because the country is home to 50 percent of the world’s A.I. developers. China also spends more on chips than any other market in the world. He has said that he fears that exiting the market would allow Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, to increase its sales and eventually compete against Nvidia overseas.

特朗普政府此前对人工智能芯片销售的限制对英伟达构成了威胁。黄仁勋认为向中国销售芯片对英伟达的未来至关重要，因为全球50%的人工智能研发人员在中国。中国在购买芯片上花的钱也比世界任何其他地方都多。他表示，自己担心退出中国市场会让中国科技巨头华为增加销售额，并最终在海外市场上与英伟达竞争。

Mr. Huang pressed the administration to roll back its restrictions on shipments of A.I. chips to China, arguing that closing off the China market will only hurt U.S. tech companies. He has also urged the administration to get countries around the world to build on chips and software made by U.S. companies.

黄仁勋敦促美国政府取消向中国出口人工智能芯片的限制，认为退出中国市场只会损害美国科技企业的利益。他还呼吁美国政府让世界各国使用美国公司生产的芯片和软件。

“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 last week in Washington with the Special Competitive Studies Project, a think tank.

“美国的技术栈应该成为全球标准，就像美元是衡量每个国家发展水平的标准一样，”黄仁勋上周在华盛顿智库“特别竞争研究项目”录制的播客中说。

Mr. Huang has a more optimistic view of U.S.-China relations than many in Washington. During the podcast, he said that China is a “competitor and adversary, not our enemy.”

与美国政府中的许多人相比，黄仁勋对美中关系的看法更乐观。他在播客中说，中国是“竞争者和对手，不是我们的敌人”。

Some members of the Trump administration have gradually come around to share Mr. Huang’s perspective, including David Sacks, the White House’s A.I. and crypto czar.

特朗普政府中的一些人已逐渐认同黄仁勋的观点，他们中包括白宫的人工智能和加密货币事务负责人戴维·萨克斯。

The H20 is not Nvidia’s most powerful chip. To comply with U.S. restrictions on sales to China, the company throttled the performance of a more powerful semiconductor, the H100, and began marketing it in China as the H20. But the H20 has significant memory capabilities that are valuable for the process of running A.I., which is known as “inference.”

H20并非英伟达性能最强的芯片。按照美国对中国技术出口管制的要求，英伟达降低了其性能最强的芯片H100的算力，以H20的名称销售给中国。但H20有强大的内存能力，这对进行所谓的人工智能“推理”计算至关重要。

The Trump administration’s reversal could face pushback on Capitol Hill. In April, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party opened an investigation into Nvidia’s chip sales across Asia. The committee was trying to assess whether the chip maker knowingly provided DeepSeek with critical technology, potentially in violation of U.S. rules.

特朗普政府的政策转向可能会在国会遇到反对。今年4月，众议院与中国共产党战略竞争特设委员会对英伟达在亚洲各地的芯片销售展开调查。该委员会正在试图评估这家芯片制造商是否在知情情况下向DeepSeek提供了关键技术，此举可能违反了美国的法规。