Trump Blocks Nvidia’s Advanced Blackwell AI Chip Exports to China Ahead of Xi Meeting - Crypto Markets Watch Closely

Washington throws silicon wrench in China's AI ambitions just hours before high-stakes diplomacy.

The Geopolitical Gambit

In a move that sent shockwaves through both tech and crypto circles, the former president slammed the brakes on Nvidia's most sophisticated AI processors reaching Chinese shores. The timing—mere hours before his October 30 sit-down with Xi Jinping—speaks volumes about using tech supremacy as diplomatic leverage.

Crypto's Unseen Connection

While mainstream headlines focus on AI implications, savvy digital asset traders recognize the ripple effects. Restricted AI development could accelerate China's pivot toward blockchain infrastructure investments—a classic case of regulatory pressure creating unexpected opportunities in decentralized networks.

The $0.035 Paradox

Meanwhile, whispers circulate about emerging tokens positioned to capitalize on exactly this kind of geopolitical fragmentation. At current prices, some projects offer exposure to the infrastructure supporting next-gen computing—whether AI gets blocked or not.

Wall Street's usual suspects will probably miss this one while they're still trying to explain their last 'sure thing' that wasn't. The real action? It's happening where traditional gatekeepers can't reach.

Huang pushes for market access while officials warn of national security risk

Jensen has spoken with Trump often about Nvidia’s access to China, which is one of Nvidia’s largest markets and home to a large share of the world’s AI research talent.

At an Nvidia event in Washington before the Busan summit, Jensen emphasized the stakes. He said that about half of the world’s AI researchers work in China and that the U.S. risked permanently losing market share.

“I really hope President Trump will help us find a solution,” Jensen said. “Right now we’re in an awkward place.”

The Blackwell chips are Nvidia’s most advanced generation of GPUs. The company has said that servers built with the B200 chip can perform training workloads about three times faster than servers using the older H100, and inference tasks about fifteen times faster.

Those performance differences matter, because they shape how fast companies can build and deploy AI products.

The U.S. first imposed export controls on high-end Nvidia chips to China in 2022, saying they were meant to slow Chinese progress in frontier AI systems.

Trump signals conditional openness but rejects top-tier Blackwell

For months before the Busan summit, Trump had publicly hinted at a possible approval of a lower-performance version of Blackwell for China, which naturally raised expectations inside Nvidia and among Chinese companies that some export path might reopen.

After returning from the Asia trip, Trump changed tone in public. In an interview on “60 Minutes,” he said the U.S. would allow China to do business with Nvidia, but not with its most advanced chip.

He said of the Blackwell processors, “We don’t give that chip to other people,” without specifying whether he meant only the top-performing version or also the scaled-down version Nvidia had been drafting.

The specifications for the reduced-performance Blackwell chip have not been released. In August, Trump said he would consider a version cut by 30% to 50% in capability. People familiar with Nvidia’s internal timeline said the company could produce such a chip within two or three months of receiving approval.

Even if approved, the reduced version faces obstacles. In August, the WHITE House reversed an export ban on an older Nvidia chip on the condition that Nvidia share 15% of revenue from China with the U.S. government.

Some lawyers said such an arrangement functioned like a tax that had not been authorized by Congress. Soon after that proposal surfaced, Chinese authorities privately instructed companies not to buy the chip. Nvidia has not sold the H20 chip in China since April, which cost the company billions of dollars in potential revenue.

Congressional critics target Huang and link AI race to Cold War stakes

Opposition to Nvidia’s efforts has grown in Congress and policy circles. Before the Busan meeting, critics circulated a video of Jensen’s comments in a July CNN interview where he said he did not think it mattered who won the global AI race.

The House Select Committee on China reacted sharply. It described Jensen’s statement as “dangerously naive” and compared the situation to nuclear competition during the Cold War. It wrote on X, “This is like arguing that it would not have mattered if the Soviets beat the U.S. to a nuclear weapon.”

The Busan summit itself ended with both governments taking steps to reduce tensions in some areas. The U.S. agreed to lower certain tariffs, and China agreed to resume purchases of U.S. soybeans.

But the chip issue remained unresolved. For Xi, gaining access to advanced processors is essential to China’s goal of building domestic high-technology industries. Not receiving relief on the chip restrictions delays China’s timeline.

For Nvidia, the situation is still fluid. The company remains in discussions with the administration about the modified Blackwell chip.

Jensen said in Washington last week that Trump calls him late at night, and he expects the conversation to continue ahead of Trump’s planned trip to China in April. But the top-tier Blackwell chip remains blocked, and the timeline for any alternative is uncertain.

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