TAIPEI, Taiwan: Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang arrived in Taipei for a brief visit with executives at chipmaking partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), as the company faces rising pressure over its China business and prepares to unveil quarterly earnings next week.
Speaking to reporters at Songshan airport, Huang said his main purpose was “to visit TSMC,” adding that he would depart after dinner with its leaders. TSMC later said Huang would also deliver an internal talk on his management philosophy.
Huang praised the company’s work with TSMC, revealing that Nvidia has “taped out” six new chips, including a next-generation GPU and a silicon photonics processor for its upcoming Rubin-architecture supercomputers. “This is the first architecture in our history where every single chip is new and revolutionary,” he said.
The trip comes at a sensitive moment. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said he was open to allowing Nvidia to sell more advanced chips beyond its China-specific H20 model. Under a recent deal, Nvidia and AMD must remit 15 percent of revenue from some chip sales in China to the U.S. government.
Nvidia has been developing a new processor for China, tentatively named the B30A, based on its latest Blackwell architecture. Asked about the project, Huang said the company is in dialogue with Washington over offering a successor to the H20 but stressed, “It’s up to, of course, the U.S. government … it is too soon to know.”
Nvidia only resumed sales of the H20 in July after receiving U.S. approval, following an abrupt halt in April due to export restrictions. Days after restarting shipments, Nvidia placed an order with TSMC for 300,000 additional H20 chips to meet strong Chinese demand, Reuters reported. But Beijing has since raised concerns over potential security risks, with regulators cautioning domestic firms about purchasing the chip.
Sources told Reuters that Foxconn, another Nvidia supplier, has been asked to halt work related to the H20 as the company works through existing inventory amid uncertainty. Nvidia has denied any “backdoor” risks in its products.