Nvidia’s Blackwell chips could be sold to China, Bessent says

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that the US eventually could allow high-end computer chips made by Nvidia to be sold to Chinese companies as he teased additional meetings between US President Donald Trump and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping next year.

Bessent called Nvidia’s chips using the Blackwell design the “crown jewel”, but said that the pace of technological change could make them less advanced relatively quickly, opening up the possibility of selling the chips to China.

“If we think about the Blackwell now, they’re the crown jewel,” Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday morning. “What you’re describing is actually the pace that the technology is moving, not the pace that the negotiations are moving. So there may be a case down the road.”

“I don’t know whether it’s 12 or 24 months,” Bessent said. “Given the incredible innovation that goes on at Nvidia, where the Blackwell chips may be 2, 3, 4 down their chip stack in terms of efficacy, and at that point, they could be sold on.”

Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang told reporters last week that he hoped to sell chips from the company’s Blackwell line-up to customers in China, though he had no current plans to do so.