President Donald Trump has had a hot and cold relationship with China over both of his presidencies. But perhaps the strangest era of this relationship came with the explosion of AI. As China aims to become more independent regarding its hardware, Trump is hoping to open it up to American trade.
After reports suggested Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's invitation to China was lost in the mail, Trump took to Truth Social to set the record straight. Calling him the "Great Jensen Huang", Trump says, "In actuality, Jensen is currently on Air Force One and, unless I ask him to leave, which is highly unlikely, CNBC’s reporting is incorrect or, as they say in politics, FAKE NEWS!"
As well as Huang, Trump has also invited Larry Fink, Elon Musk, representatives from Micron, Qualcomm, and, of course, "Tim Apple" (Tim Cook, the soon-to-be ex CEO of Apple). This is the first presidential visit to China since Trump's first visit in 2017. Trump says in his Truth Social post that he will "be asking President Xi, a Leader of extraordinary distinction, to 'open up' China so that these brilliant people can work their magic."
Huang is an interesting figure to bring along, as he has long been in favour of supplying technology to China. Just last week, he bemoaned Nvidia's market share in the region and argued the US should export AI 'like crazy'.
In May last year, he said "China is right behind us" to encourage American AI growth, and said he was in favour of sending Nvidia chips because the country could simply make its own if not. Both Nvidia and the US government benefit financially from selling Nvidia chips to China.
On my way to Beijing in Air Force OneMay 13, 2026
Two months later, Huang said "we don't have to worry" about the Chinese military using US chips, because "they simply can't rely on them." By October, Huang noted "we went from 95% market share to 0%" due to a series of bans and taxes, both from the US and China. However, earlier this year, China reportedly approved imports of Nvidia's H200 AI GPUs, even if the US government could cap the amount going to individual Chinese companies.
Nvidia itself has risen to over $5 trillion in net worth, the first company to ever do so, because of its developments and role in the growth of AI. If it wants to continue growing its worth, Nvidia will want its fingers in many different pies, supplying its goods to whoever can take them. Having Huang in tow could be a good sign for future AI cooperation between the two countries.
We'll have to wait and see to find out if anything good comes out of this exchange for either country or the companies involved in talks, but there's clearly a lot of effort put into this exchange. Trump and his crew are currently in China and are due back in the US by May 15, though we may not see the outcome of these exchanges for some time.
