Chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of Chinese revenue as part of an "unprecedented" deal to secure export licenses in China, according to the BBC.
The US had previously banned the sale of powerful chips used in fields such as artificial intelligence to China under export controls usually linked to national security concerns.
Security experts, including some who served during President Donald Trump's first term, recently wrote to the administration expressing "deep concern" that Nvidia's H20 chip was "a powerful accelerator" of China's AI capabilities.
Nvidia told the BBC: "We follow the rules that the US government sets for our participation in global markets."
"While we haven't shipped H20 to China for months, we hope that export control rules will allow America to compete in China and around the world."
Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay the US government 15% of its revenue from sales of H20 chips in China.
AMD will also give the Trump administration 15% of the revenue generated from sales of its MI308 chip in China, which was first reported by the Financial Times.
The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after US export restrictions were imposed by the Biden administration in 2023.
Sales of the chip were effectively banned by the Trump administration in April of this year.
Beijing has previously criticized the US government, accusing it of "abusing export control measures and engaging in unilateral harassment."
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has spent months lobbying both sides to resume chip sales in China. He reportedly met with President Donald Trump last week.
“Either you have a national security problem or you don’t,” said Deborah Elms, director of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation.
"If you have a 15% payment, that doesn't somehow eliminate the national security issue."
