U.S. President Donald Trump (left) listens to a speech by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang in the Cross Hall of the White House during an Investing in America event on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Beijing — Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said it was a “great honor” to visit China with Donald Trump. However, he is not among the executives who will join the US president in meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. This indicates that the company’s sales in one of its most important markets are unlikely to recover soon.
Huang has visited China multiple times in the past 18 months, including a high-profile visit last summer, highlighting Nvidia’s efforts to maintain relationships in a market that once accounted for at least a fifth of its data center revenue.
But he is absent from Trump’s high-profile trip this week, where he will be joined by more than a dozen U.S. executives, including semiconductor company Qualcomm’s Cristiano Amon, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook. Boeing Co.’s Kelly Ortberg is also part of the delegation, with the U.S. aircraft maker expected to win its first major order from China in years.
NVIDIA’s cutting-edge chips, widely used to train AI models, have faced tougher U.S. restrictions on sales in China over the past four years. The company announced in February that the U.S. government-approved version of the chip was not yet allowed to be imported into China.
Experts told CNBC that U.S. chip makers’ sales in China are unlikely to recover anytime soon.
Hao Hong, chief investment officer at Lotus Asset Management, told CNBC’s Emily Tan on “The China Connection” on Tuesday that Nvidia would gain “very little” in terms of results even if Mr. Fan joins Mr. Trump’s delegation.
“It is very unlikely that more advanced forms of NVIDIA chips will be approved for Chinese purchase by the Trump administration,” Hong said, adding that further technology “decoupling” between the United States and China is likely.
“I think China has realized that technological competition between the two countries will become one of the key determinants of their relative competitive positions in global geopolitics in the future,” Hong said.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
“Whatever the president decides to announce, he should let him announce it…If he’s invited, it’s a privilege and it’s a great honor to represent the United States,” Hwang told CNBC’s Jim Cramer last week.
Trump is scheduled to arrive in Beijing late Wednesday local time for two days of talks with President Xi. This will be the first visit by a sitting US president in about 10 years.
