Nvidia's Trump tax not dampening investors' AI bets

President Donald Trump's move to extract a 15 per cent sales tax from Nvidia Corporation on certain semiconductors sold in China did nothing to damp investor enthusiasm for the world's most valuable company.

- RYAN VLASTELICA & CARMEN REINICKE

A look at balance-sheet math goes a long way to explaining why. In the first quarter, Nvidia said it sold $5.5 billion in products to China, roughly 13 per cent of its total. The chips exposed to the Trump tax accounted for about 80 per cent of that, or just under $5 billion.

That means the Santa Clara, California-based firm could send some $700 million per quarter to the Treasury — hardly chump change. But for a company that churns out $20 billion in profit a quarter and increases sales by a similar amount — a rate of growth it's sustained throughout the AI boom — paying the tax barely registers.