Nvidia and AMD have committed to paying 15 percent of their China revenues from the sale of special AI chips to the US government to obtain export licenses from the Trump administration. The agreement applies to Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 chips, which were released for the Chinese market last week after months of delays.

According to insiders, this is the first case in which U.S. companies have accepted a direct revenue share as a condition for export licenses. A government official stated that how the revenue will be used is still open. The unusual arrangement aligns with Trump's practice of encouraging companies to make concessions such as investments or relocation of production in order to secure economic benefits for the USA.

Bernstein estimates that Nvidia could sell around 1.5 million H20 chips in China by 2025 – a volume of about 23 billion US dollars. The customized H20 variant was developed following the Biden administration’s export restrictions on advanced AI chips. Trump's Department of Commerce had banned the export in April, but revised the decision after a meeting between CEO Jensen Huang and the president in June.

The deal faces resistance from the ranks of national security. In a letter to Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick, Matt Pottinger and 19 other security experts warned that the H20 is a "potent accelerator" for China's military AI capabilities. Nvidia rejected this and warned that export bans would only motivate Beijing to develop independently faster.