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Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) have agreed to hand over 15% of revenues from their Chinese AI chip sales to the U.S. government in exchange for export licenses, according to multiple published reports citing sources.
Nvidia will share 15% of revenue from sales of its H20 AI accelerator in China, the reports said, citing a person familiar with the matter. AMD is expected to contribute an identical share from its MI308 chip revenues, the person said.
“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets. While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide,” a NVIDIA spokesperson told Seeking Alpha.
AMD did not immediately respond to Seeking Alpha’s request for comment.
The Trump administration halted sales of Nvidia’s H20 chips to China in April, but the company announced last month that U.S. authorities had cleared it to resume sales, with deliveries expected to begin soon. A U.S. official said Friday that the Commerce Department had started issuing licenses for H20 shipments to China.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said last month that the planned resumption of H20 sales was part of negotiations with China to secure rare earth supplies, describing the H20 as Nvidia’s “fourth-best chip” in an interview with CNBC.
However, Nvidia’s H20 chips have recently drawn security concerns in China. The account, Yuyuan Tantian, which is connected to state broadcaster CCTV, expressed worries about potential backdoor access in these chips in an article shared on WeChat on Sunday.