A Trump Policy Pivot Could Hand Nvidia Billions in AI Chip Sales -- If It Happens

Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is currently barred from selling its vaunted graphics processing chips (GPUs) in China, but there may be some movement on that front. Bloomberg is reporting that the Trump administration is considering allowing Nvidia to sell its H200 chips to China -- and if so, it could be worth potentially billions to Nvidia's bottom line.

Nvidia's China problem

Nvidia would love to sell chips to China -- in fact, Chinese sales made up 13% of Nvidia's revenue in 2024, accounting for $17.1 billion in sales, according to Motley Fool research.

Nvidia was previously able to sell its H20 chip in China -- a version of its popular Hopper H100 chip that was downgraded to meet U.S. export regulations imposed by the Biden administration. But in April 2025, the Trump administration imposed new export rules that blocked the chip sales. Sales never resumed -- CEO Jensen Huang at one point said the Trump administration agreed to allow Nvidia to resume sales in exchange for 15% of China sales revenue, but Beijing discouraged Chinese companies from buying the chip, citing national security reasons, and instead encouraged them to use domestic alternatives.

Image source: Nvidia.

The H200, however, is more powerful than the H100 or the downgraded H20. It has more memory capacity and bandwidth -- both of which are important for chips that train and run AI programs and large language models.

What China sales could mean for Nvidia

Reopening the Chinese market would be great for Nvidia, but keep in mind the company is doing well without Beijing's support. Nvidia posted $57 billion in revenue in its fiscal 2026 third quarter (ending Oct. 26, 2025), with data center sales making up $51.2 billion of that. Overall sales increased by 62% from the previous year, with data center sales rising by 66%. And it issued guidance for $67 billion in sales for the fourth quarter.

Nvidia is seeing massive demand for its new Blackwell chips, which are more powerful than the Hopper line, and it plans to roll out the next-generation Rubin chips next year. Trump has already stated that he wouldn't approve Nvidia selling its powerful Blackwell chips, but the H200 chips could potentially be a massive upgrade from the H20 line.

However, there's a long way to go before any of this comes to fruition. First, it's unknown whether Nvidia will be able to sell the H200 chips as they are, or if it will be required to downgrade them, as with the H20 chip. Also, Beijing would have to be convinced that the chips do not constitute a security threat -- and that's a mountain that Nvidia, thus far, has been unable to scale.

Undoubtedly, Chinese firms will want Nvidia's H200 chips, which by any measure are more powerful than domestic alternatives. But there are many steps to complete before investors can start banking on those potential profits.

Patrick Sanders has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.