On its face, the recent summit between Donald Trump and China’s president Xi Jinping didn’t change much in the world of AI regulation. Export controls were not discussed, with neither country seemingly interested in making concessions. However, in the background, China is reportedly mulling relaxing controls and allowing some of its biggest AI firms to import perhaps millions more of Nvidia’s banned chips over the next year. Sources told The Information that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology asked Alibaba and Byte Dance to share plans to buy Nvidia’s RTX Pro 5500 chips.

Increasingly, Trump looks to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang for advice on AI. Stephen Witt, author of *The Thinking Machine*, told NPR that Huang “is now the president’s most influential adviser on technology issues.” Witt noted that Trump’s recent claims—suggesting that it’s a “hoax” that AI might destroy humanity—are “exactly Jensen’s talking points.” Critics worry that Nvidia’s profit motivations may be steering Trump’s thinking at a pivotal moment.

For Nvidia, a big goal since Trump took office was to open up more of China’s market. Huang has blamed US export controls for cutting Nvidia’s share of China’s advanced AI chip market from about 95 percent to zero. After a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump lifted export controls on H200 chips. Some worry that what’s good for Nvidia may not be good for the United States.