U.S. President Donald Trump decided to let Nvidia sell its H200 artificial intelligence chips to China after concluding the move carried a lower security risk because the company’s Chinese archrival, Huawei Technologies, already offers AI systems with comparable performance, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.

Administration officials who weighed whether to clear Nvidia’s H200 had considered multiple possible scenarios, factoring in the views of national security hawks in Washington, said the person. Options ranged from exporting zero AI chips to China to allowing exports of everything to flood the Chinese market and overwhelm Huawei. Ultimately the policy backed by Trump called for clearing H200s to China while holding back the latest Nvidia chips for American customers, the person said.

The move would give the U.S. an 18-month advantage over China in terms of what AI chips customers in each market receive, with American buyers retaining exclusive access to the latest products, the person said. White House officials concluded that pushing the H200 into China would prod Chinese AI developers into building on the U.S. tech ecosystem rather than turning to offerings from Huawei or other local chipmakers.

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