The US House of Representatives’ Special Committee on China Issues sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Lutnick on Friday (July 18) opposing the resumption of sales of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence chips to China, stating that this move will promote AI development in Beijing. The committee chairman, Republican Representative John Moolenaar, emphasized that the initial ban on sales was the right decision.
According to a press release issued by the House’s Special Committee on China Issues on Friday, Chairman Moolenaar warned that this AI chip could help Chinese companies dominate the global AI market, thereby weakening US technological superiority.
“The Commerce Department’s decision to ban H20 was the right one, and now we must hold our ground,” he wrote. “We cannot allow the CCP to use American chips to train AI models, strengthen military capabilities, censor speech, and undermine US innovation.”
Nvidia announced earlier this week that it has been given approval to resume exporting the H20 chip to China. The chip was originally designed as a “compliant product” to comply with restrictions imposed by the Biden administration, but the Trump administration still fully banned the export of H20 in April of this year citing national security reasons. This ban had bipartisan support, and Chairman Moolenaar had already called for the government to explain the situation on Monday.
After his public criticism on Friday, Nvidia’s stock price began to fall according to Reuters. The company has not commented on this issue, and the Commerce Department has not yet responded.
Commerce Secretary Lutnick stated on Tuesday that resuming the export of H20 is part of negotiations for rare earth and magnet supplies between the US and China.
Despite the redesign of H20 to avoid the ban, it remains competitive in the “inference stage” of AI – which is the core stage where AI models produce final responses and are put into practical use. This stage is becoming a major player in the AI chip market, and H20 also has the potential for use in supercomputers.
According to a report from the House Committee on China in April, Chinese AI company DeepSeek has been using H20 to train its new generation models that have garnered global attention. Moolenaar added that companies like Tencent have also started using it, and there are increasing signs that Chinese AI companies are using H20 to build supercomputing systems, raising concerns about violating the US Supercomputer End Use Rule.
He also dismissed the comparisons between H20 and high-end American chips, pointing out that such comparisons overlook the real strategic risks.
Under the new policy, the export of H20 still requires approval from the US side. Nvidia stated it has received verbal assurances from the government for certification and is preparing to begin shipments.
Moolenaar requested the Commerce Department to brief before August 8 on how they plan to review export license applications for H20 and similar products, expected export quantities, and recipients.
“The overall performance of H20 far surpasses products that can currently be mass-produced by Chinese chip manufacturers like Huawei, significantly advancing China’s AI development,” he emphasized in the letter. “If the US truly wants to lead the world in AI, it must hold onto its own advantages rather than hand them over. The world should adopt American AI, not models trained by (communist) China using American technology.”