Nvidia CEO charms Beijing amid US-China tech rivalry

On a high-profile trip to China, with billions in potential sales to the lucrative Chinese semiconductor market at stake, Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang ditched his iconic black leather jacket for a traditional Tang suit.

- Lim Min Zhang

BEIJING -

At the opening of a trade exhibition in Beijing on July 16, the Taiwan-born American spoke a few sentences of halting Mandarin, before adding to laughter: "I am going to do the rest of my speech in English now. So I don't torture you for the rest of the day."

Describing artificial intelligence (AI) models from Chinese tech players like DeepSeek, Alibaba and Baidu as "world-class", he said: "The heroes of China's super-fast innovation are your researchers, developers and entrepreneurs. More than 1.5 million developers in China build on Nvidia today to bring their innovations to life."

Nvidia is at the heart of a global AI boom, and last week became the first public company to hit US$4 trillion (S$5.14 trillion) in stock market value.

Mr Huang, who is among the American tech executives who are trying to court Chinese customers while not falling foul of Washington's national security concerns, has come prepared on his third China visit of the year.

On July 15, Nvidia announced that sales of its H20 chip to China would resume, with Washington's nod. The AI chip, a less powerful version of the firm's flagship H100, had been banned in April when Washington tightened export controls.

But analysts said the move to approve the China-specific chip is merely a reprieve which may not last, with technology at the heart of US-China competition and both countries still in the middle of a 90-day trade truce since May 12.