U.S. Department of Commerce

Ahead of Trump's meeting with Xi Jinping, House Select Committee on China chairman John Moolenaar wrote to the president asking him to slow China's AI development by strengthening controls on advanced AI products, closing the cloud-service loopholes that let Chinese companies dodge them, and halting exports of American and allied semiconductor-manufacturing technology. The letter argued the PRC is not a long-term market for American AI because Beijing is refusing to let its own labs legally buy American technology.

AsiaToday reported that Howard Lutnick told CNBC on September 2 that he did not expect export-control easing to be on the summit agenda. NationPress, published September 3, quoted him as saying that Donald Trump had offered China H200 chips and equivalent chips from AMD and other suppliers.

Politico reported that NVIDIA and AMD urged the Trump administration to discourage lawmakers from including China-related chip-export restrictions in the annual defense policy bill. The reported outreach sought to prevent the proposed restrictions from being added to that bill.

BIS Under Secretary Jeffrey Kessler told Congress that H200 chips had been shipped to China or Hong Kong. He said the number of chips shipped to date was very few.

Four U.S. House members asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to explain its June 12 export-control action. The letter said the action imposed a license requirement on public distribution of a frontier AI model.

Citing national security authorities, the government issued an export control directive covering the company's two most capable models. Because the order turned on the nationality of the user rather than their location, Anthropic disabled both models for everyone.

Reuters reported that the United States had cleared roughly 10 Chinese companies to buy H200 chips. The report said deals had stalled and deliveries had not begun.

In its annual report AMD disclosed that it had begun MI308 shipments at the end of fiscal 2025, that net export-control charges for the year came to about $440 million after the reversal, and that US officials expected 15 percent of licensed MI308 revenue although no rule establishing the requirement had been published. It warned that any such demand could subject the company to litigation and favour competitors not bound by the arrangement.

AMD's first-quarter 10-Q disclosed that in February 2026 the US government granted some licenses to ship MI325 products to certain China-based customers under the January policy. Each chip must first pass an inspection in the United States, which makes it subject to a 25 percent tariff on importation for that inspection, and AMD said it did not yet know whether China would allow the imports.

Following Trump's December 8 decision to allow H200-class sales to approved Chinese customers, BIS revised its licensing policy so that applications for the H200, the AMD MI325X and similar chips are reviewed case by case rather than under a presumption of denial. Applicants must show exports will not shrink capacity available to US customers, that the buyer screens its own customers, and that the chips pass independent third-party testing in the United States.

BIS revised its license review policy so that applications to export Nvidia H200, AMD MI325X and similar chips to China are reviewed case by case if the exporter shows no reduction in capacity for U.S. customers, the Chinese buyer has export-compliance screening, and the product passed independent third-party testing in the United States. The rule took effect on publication.

The Trump administration reversed course and said Nvidia could sell its H200 to approved commercial customers in China vetted by the Commerce Department, with 25 percent of the revenue going to the U.S. government. Nvidia welcomed the decision.

Intel agreed to sell the U.S. government 433.3 million new shares at US$20.47 each, a 9.9 percent stake, paid for with US$5.7 billion of CHIPS Act grants that had been awarded but not disbursed and US$3.2 billion from the Secure Enclave program. The stake is passive, with no board seat.

After the Financial Times reported the arrangement, a White House official confirmed to CBS News that Nvidia and AMD had agreed to pay the US government 15 percent of revenue from H20 and MI308 sales in China as a condition of the export licenses granted the previous week. No regulation was published, a point AMD would later flag to investors.

The day after Nvidia said it had been assured H20 licenses would be granted, AMD said the Commerce Department would move forward with its MI308 license applications and that it planned to resume shipments as approvals came, praising the administration's trade negotiations. The stock rose more than 6 percent.

The Department of Commerce announced the rescission of the Biden-era AI Diffusion rule two days before its compliance date, alongside guidance on the risks of using Chinese advanced computing chips, including specific Huawei Ascend parts, and on preventing diversion of U.S. chips.

TSMC broke ground on its third Phoenix fab on April 29, 2025, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick attending. TSMC's Arizona site page says the fab is slated for N2 and A16 process technologies.

A day after Nvidia disclosed the H20 license requirement and a $5.5 billion charge, AMD filed an 8-K saying the same new rule covered exports of its MI308 to China, Hong Kong, Macau and other D:5 countries. It expected up to $800 million of inventory, purchase-commitment and reserve charges, said it would apply for licenses with no assurance of approval, and its shares fell more than 7 percent.

BIS announced controls on advanced computing chips and certain closed AI model weights, with country allocations under which license applications were reviewed with a presumption of approval up to a quota and arms-embargoed countries such as China faced a presumption of denial regardless of quantity.

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a third round of controls aimed at China's ability to make advanced-node chips: new licence requirements on 24 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and three software tools, the first controls on high-bandwidth memory, red-flag guidance aimed at diversion, and 140 Entity List additions with 14 modifications covering Chinese tool makers, fabs and investment companies. The package did not change what Nvidia could sell, but it put a licence between Chinese AI systems and the memory they need, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called it the culmination of the administration's approach.

Intel and the Commerce Department finalised the CHIPS Act award at up to US$7.86 billion in direct funding for the Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon projects, reduced from the March preliminary figure.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said early production yields at TSMC’s first Arizona plant were on par with similar factories in Taiwan. The statement concerned early Fab 1 production yields.

The U.S. Department of Commerce finalized a CHIPS Act award of up to US$6.6 billion in direct funding for TSMC Arizona. Commerce said the award supports TSMC’s planned investment of more than US$65 billion in three Phoenix fabs.

SK hynix signed a non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms with the U.S. Department of Commerce for up to US$450 million in proposed direct funding and US$500 million in loans under the CHIPS and Science Act for the Indiana packaging facility.

TSMC Arizona and the U.S. Department of Commerce announced a preliminary agreement for up to US$6.6 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding. TSMC added a third Phoenix fab for 2nm or more advanced processes by the end of the decade, taking the site to more than US$65 billion. The first fab was described as on track for 4nm production in the first half of 2025, and the second fab was now to produce 2nm as well as 3nm, with production beginning in 2028 rather than 2026.

Intel and the Biden administration announced preliminary terms for up to US$8.5 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding for projects in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, eligibility for federal loans of up to US$11 billion, and an investment tax credit on more than US$100 billion of qualified investment.

Bloomberg reported that the Commerce Department had declined to clear AMD's cut-down AI chip for sale in China because it remained too capable, meaning AMD would have to apply for a BIS license rather than ship under the notification route. The report was the first public sign that the MI308 would live or die by license decisions.

The October 2023 update replaced the interconnect-bandwidth parameter with a total processing performance and performance density test, closing the loophole that Nvidia's A800 and H800 had used, and added a notification requirement for chips just under the line. AMD's MI300 family fell above the new threshold, so any China part would have to be cut down much further.

BIS released updated rules on advanced computing chips and chipmaking equipment. Among the changes it removed interconnect bandwidth as a parameter for identifying restricted chips, which brought Nvidia's China-specific A800 and H800 within the controls, and extended license requirements to more countries. Nvidia's same-day filing listed A100, A800, H100, H800, L40, L40S and RTX 4090 as covered.

The Commerce Department turned the August letters into a published rule: advanced computing chips above a performance and interconnect threshold, the supercomputers they feed and the equipment to make them all needed licenses for China. The thresholds caught the MI250 class and set the ceiling under which AMD, Nvidia and Intel would design China-specific parts.

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a package of export controls restricting advanced computing chips, supercomputer and semiconductor end uses, and chipmaking equipment for China. The advanced computing and supercomputer controls took effect on October 21, 2022, turning the company-specific August letter into a general rule.

Days after Nvidia disclosed a license requirement for the A100 and H100, AMD confirmed it had received a similar notice covering the Instinct MI250 and MI250X, while the older MI100 was unaffected. AMD said the impact on its data center business would be marginal, since most of its compute GPUs went into US and European supercomputers, and disclosed the requirement in its third-quarter 10-Q.

The Bureau of Industry and Security added Sugon, the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Higon and the two Chengdu Haiguang companies that AMD had formed with Sugon's THATIC consortium in 2016 to license Zen server-CPU technology. The listing cut the venture off from US technology a week before Trump's G20 meeting with Xi Jinping, and it marked the first time Washington's China controls landed directly on AMD's business.