A strange turn in the AI chip race with China
On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti
WBUR
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last month, President Donald Trump approved the sale of one of Nvidia’s most powerful AI chips to China. Why the president may have done that -- and what it could mean for national security.
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| 0:45.1 | This is on point. I'm Megacharabardi. |
| 0:48.2 | Last month, President Trump gave the world's most valuable company, NVIDIA, |
| 0:52.9 | the green light to sell the H-200, one of its most |
| 0:55.8 | powerful chips, to China. For months now, the company that got its start in video game graphics |
| 1:01.3 | has been making headlines as the Trump administration seeks to build influence across Silicon |
| 1:06.0 | Valley. We're going to build NVIDIA's technology, the next generation of that, all here in the United States. |
| 1:11.9 | Without the president's leadership, his policies, his support, and very importantly, his strong encouragement. |
| 1:22.5 | And I mean a strong encouragement. |
| 1:25.2 | Frankly, manufacturing the United States wouldn't have accelerated |
| 1:29.4 | through this pace. That's Jensen Huang, NVIDIA's CEO and co-founder, after a meeting with |
| 1:34.6 | Trump in April. Huang had been pushing for the government to lift a ban on the sale of his |
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