OpenAI Bit Its Tongue On China Chips To Keep Nvidia Happy, Report Finds
The creator of ChatGPT has reportedly kept quiet about chip sales to China to stay in the good graces of its key supplier.
The creator of ChatGPT has reportedly kept quiet about chip sales to China to stay in the good graces of its key supplier.
Executives at OpenAI have strayed away from declaring a definitive public stance advanced chip sales to China due to concerns that it could alienate chipmaker Nvidia, the Information reported Tuesday. This follows the Democratic takeover of Congress, which could lead to changes in restrictions that give China an edge in the AI race.
Nvidia reportedly also used its influence within the Trump administration to lobby conservative think tanks in Washington, the Information reported. One think tank was told that Nvidia’s donation to the organization was a “tough sell internally” after a fellow criticized the tech company’s relationship with China.
“NVIDIA is the vanguard of America’s effort to win the AI race and proud to honor longstanding U.S. policy,” a spokesperson for Nvidia said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “America cannot win the AI race unless America’s AI infrastructure wins worldwide — if the world’s clouds rely on foreign-made chips, the model and application layers will be foreign-built as well.”
Nvidia was permitted by the Trump administration in Dec. 2025 to sell H200 chips to China in a limited capacity.
The frontier lab says it generally supports tough export controls to enable the development of American AI.