US Technology Giant Seeks To Become Leader In China

U.S. technology giant Advanced Micro Devices may become the preferred U.S. chip provider for China.

Amid growing technology competition between the U.S. and China, AMD CEO and president Lisa Su has continued to build the company’s relationship and involvement with the communist power.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has deepened its dependence on China as 20% of its total revenue now comes from the communist country, according to Crypto Briefing. AMD simultaneously continues to grow in the U.S., announcing a long-term infrastructure agreement with Meta in February.

AMD supports China’s AI ecosystem as it employs over 4,000 engineers at research and development centers across multiple cities in China, according to Tom’s Hardware. In 2024, AMD launched the China AI Application Innovation Alliance, an alliance intended to promote local AI development in China, which exceeded 100 Independent Software Vendor (ISV) members in its first year, European Central Station reported.

Su has visited China at least four times meeting with senior Chinese officials since 2024, including a meeting with Vice Premier He Lifeng in May 2026. Su said in the meeting at The Great Hall of the People in Beijing that AMD would expand operations and investments in China.

AMD and Nvidia — which both have their headquarters in Santa Clara, California — have been long-time competitors. Nvidia became the first company in the world to hit $5 trillion in market value in October 2025.

In May, President Donald Trump made an agreement between China and the U.S. which allowed Nvidia to sell its H200 AI chips to approved companies in China, according to 24/7 Wall Street. However, after this agreement was made, Chinese regulators wanted to place Nvidia’s product under stricter government watch.

In 2016, AMD partnered with Chinese companies THATIC and Hygon licensing them its technology, according to EE Times. In 2019, the companies were added to the U.S. Entities List, a list of foreign parties subject to specific license requirements for exportation to protect sensitive technologies from going to anyone who might threaten U.S. national security or American citizens. At the time, AMD claimed that no new technology licenses were planned with this partner following the restrictions, Nikkei Asia reported.

Also that year, AMD also created a joint venture with Tongfu Microelectronics, giving the large semiconductor packaging company “a permanent, irrevocable, royalty-free license to access intellectual property from AMD,” according to the Jamestown Foundation.

Nine years later, in January 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released a list of companies of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) approved for handling advanced chips. But because Tongfu already had technology license with AMD, the BIS did not reach its use of the technology. The license between Tongfu and AMD has no expiration, according to the Jamestown Foundation.

AMD’s purchases from this joint venture reached $1.5 billion in 2025, according to the Jamestown Foundation. There is currently no other supplier which could handle this quantity of AMD’s core processor lines.

Trump traveled to China in May with a group of U.S. delegates, including Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, to meet with Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China. After reportedly being initially left off of the White House invitation list to China, Huang told reporters that Trump asked him to come on the trip, CNBC reported.