Nvidia CEO says China on track "to win the AI race"
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Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. Photo: Woohae Cho/Getty Images)
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has sounded his loudest alarm about the U.S. falling behind to China on AI, telling the Financial Times that "China is going to win the AI race."
Why it matters: The trillion-dollar bet on AI's success, pushed by the Trump administration, hinges in large part on Nvidia, the dominant maker of chips for AI computing.
- Huang's warning reflected an apparent frustration with mounting calls for regulation in the U.S.
What they're saying: On the sidelines of an FT conference in London Wednesday, Huang said that states in the U.S. were considering new rules that could result in "50 new regulations," while Beijing was subsidizing energy costs to encourage local companies to run Chinese alternatives to his company's chips.
- "China is going to win the AI race," he told the FT .
- In a statement to Axios later Wednesday, Huang said: "As I have long said, China is nanoseconds behind America in AI. It's vital that America wins by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide."
State of play: His comments follow the Trump administration's continued ban on sales of Nvidia's most advanced chips to China even after President Trump met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
- Huang has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the Chinese market, not only as a lucrative, $50 billion business opportunity for his company but for the degree of research being done there.
- "About 50% of the world's AI researchers are in China," he noted in August.
- "The vast majority of the leading open source models are created in China," Huang said then. "And so it's fairly important, I think, for the American technology companies to be able to address that market."
Catch up quick: Huang has often referred to the competition over AI with China .
- At a tech conference in April, he said that China was "right behind" the U.S. in terms of its AI models, per CNBC. "Remember, this is a long-term, infinite race," he said.
- And as recently as Nvidia conference in Washington, D.C., last week, Huang sounded more optimistic, saying: "It is absolutely the case that we can lose this race. But we are well ahead today."
At that conference, Huang called for policies to increase energy production and attract AI developers with the goal of the U.S. winning 80% of the global AI market.
What we're watching: Whether the Nvidia CEO's warning will prompt the Trump administration to take further steps to promote data center development and stave off state regulatory efforts.
Go deeper: Nvidia becomes the world's first $5 trillion company
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
