Washington Jeopardized 17% of Nvidia’s Business… Huang’s in Beijing Trying to Save It

Jensen Huang’s story about cleaning toilets at Denny’s is far more than a feel good story. It’s a perfect example of the grit and initiative the man possesses.. When things get messy, he rolls up his sleeves and does the work (we’ve seen it time and time again). And he’s proving it this week.

Just days after the U.S. government screwed up Nvidia's China business (again) Huang was already in Beijing trying to salvage what’s left. No press blitz. No angry tweets. Just a quiet visit to Nvidia’s most important international market.

If you’re in the dark on the details, here’s the backstory: On Tuesday, the Trump administration issued new export restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 chip… the only AI chip the company was still legally allowed to sell to China. Now remember, the H20 had been surgically designed to comply with earlier restrictions. It was a chip Nvidia created specifically thinking it couldn’t get banned. Apparently, that wasn’t enough.

The reversal blindsided both Nvidia and its Chinese clients (including Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent) who had been told as recently as this month that shipments were still on track. That confidence reportedly came from a recent meeting between Huang and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where things must’ve gone well… until they didn’t.

The fallout came when Nvidia had to warn investors it’s taking a $5.5 billion earnings hit. The recently dramatic market took that about as well as you’d expect… Nvidia shares dropped 7% overnight, wiping out tens of billions in market cap in the blink of an eye.

But instead of staying home and refreshing the stock chart like the rest of us, Huang flew to Beijing. His trip was arranged by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, a government-affiliated group that helps foreign businesses navigate China’s regulatory maze. He met with CCPIT chairman Ren Hongbin and made it clear: Nvidia still wants to do business. “We hope to continue to cooperate with China,” Huang said, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. It was a calm, diplomatic message… just with $5.5 billion worth of urgency behind it.

Photos of Huang smiling for cameras quickly made the rounds on Chinese and Taiwanese social media, where he’s basically a celebrity. But don’t mistake this for a PR tour. Reports say he also met with Liang Wenfeng, founder of DeepSeek… the mysterious Chinese AI company that rattled the entire tech sector back in January after unveiling a shockingly advanced chatbot (I’m still convinced they made billions shorting Nvidia when all that went down). Naturally, U.S. lawmakers are now grilling Nvidia over whether DeepSeek somehow got access to restricted chips.

The House China Committee has already sent a letter demanding answers, and while Nvidia hasn’t commented, Huang’s meeting with DeepSeek’s founder certainly got everyone’s attention.Of course, back in the red, white, and blue… U.S. officials are defending the latest round of restrictions, claiming they’re meant to prevent Nvidia chips from being “used in, or diverted to, a supercomputer in China.” Because obviously the real national security threat is a slightly underpowered datacenter chip helping train a chatbot in Hangzhou.

All of this played out as Trump continued pushing his made-in-America semiconductor agenda. The same week the H20 ban hit, Nvidia announced plans to invest up to $500 billion in U.S.-based AI infrastructure over the next four years. The White House immediately called it “the Trump effect in action.” Investors, however, were too busy digesting that $5.5B loss to celebrate.

For Nvidia, the China market is essential. Last year, China accounted for 17% of the company’s total revenue. Losing that, even partially, isn’t something you just “move on” from. And if they do end up losing China’s portion of the revenue… well look for Nvidia to fall below $90.

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Stock.News does not have positions in companies mentioned.