Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang criticized the analogy made by Anthropic startup founder Dario Amodei between supplying artificial intelligence chips to China and selling components for North Korea’s nuclear program.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang criticized the analogy made by Anthropic startup founder Dario Amodei between supplying artificial intelligence chips to China and selling components for North Korea’s nuclear program.
According to Business Insider, the controversy erupted after Dario Amodei’s essay «The Adolescence of Technology,» in which he compared selling advanced chips to China to supplying nuclear weapons to North Korea, was published. According to Amodei, the United States has no reason to give China’s AI industry a «giant boost» at a critical time when China lags the United States in mass production of chips by several years.
During the latest episode of the Dwarkesh Podcast, Jensen Huang responded sharply to these accusations.
«Comparing artificial intelligence to any of the things you just mentioned is crazy. We’re not enriching uranium. It’s a chip, and it’s a chip that they [China] can eventually make themselves,» the Nvidia chief said.
Huang has consistently lobbied for the easing of restrictions, noting that China is the world’s second-largest market. He estimates that sales in the PRC could bring Nvidia up to $50 billion annually.
Beyond the financial aspect, Huang pointed to the strategic danger: tough sanctions are forcing China to build its own ecosystem based on open-source solutions running on foreign technology stacks. In his opinion, isolating China will lead to the emergence of two parallel AI worlds, which would be a «terrible outcome» for US leadership.
Nvidia is currently trying to get permission to sell its H200 chips in China. The Trump administration had previously approved the sale, with the U.S. government taking 25 percent of the revenue, but the process has been held up by national security concerns. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress confirmed that the company has not yet generated revenue from the model in China.
