On 14 July, a photo began circulating on Chinese social media: Jensen Huang, CEO of US chipmaker Nvidia, posing amicably with Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, in Beijing. Nvidia quickly responded that Huang was on his third visit to China this year, this time to participate in the China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE).
Just before the expo, Jensen Huang announced in an interview that Nvidia had received permission from the United States government to resume sales of its H20 chips in China, after a previous ban by the US Department of Commerce on 15 April, 3 months ago. The H20 was originally developed as a “compliance” version of the more powerful H100 chip, and its ban was widely criticised at the time.
In other news, Huang delivered the opening remarks to his speech at the CISCE in Chinese. The Taiwan-born American executive admitted to being rather nervous about his first speech in Chinese, albeit it was only the first 1 minute or so before he switched back to English. In this opener, Huang managed to mention 9 Chinese companies, including Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek.
But what captured Chinese netizens’ attention was that Huang finally responded to the question of why he keeps wearing his iconic leather jacket, even in Beijing’s scorching summer: his only suit needs dry cleaning.
- #黄仁勋回应大热天穿皮夹克 Jensen Huang responds to wearing leather on a hot day: 14.12 million views on Weibo, ranking number 10 on the Hot Search list
Huang confirmed that there are already many orders for the H20, and Nvidia needs time to ramp up its capacity to meet the demand. Nvidia’s stock also surged on the news, with the company’s market value growing by 160 billion USD overnight. However, Chinese commentators are not completely convinced by the development, as some believe the 3 month vacuum caused by the absence of the H20, fostered a reliance on domestic chips. Nvidia has even been accused of “dumping” or selling “inferior” chips specifically to China.