The U.S. Congress recently decided at the last minute, before submitting the annual National Defense Authorization Act for review, not to include the GAIN AI Act. This decision is seen as a major lobbying victory for NVIDIA, reflecting a fierce power struggle between the White House, Congress, tech giants, and national security officials. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang also personally flew to Washington to meet with President Trump and several members of Congress to seek clarification.
The bill sparked debate, with the US fearing it could squeeze out chip supplies.
The core spirit of the "GAIN AI Act" is to require AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chip manufacturers such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel to ensure that domestic demand in the United States is met before exporting their products. This act stems from the long-standing shortage of AI chips in the United States, which has caused many companies and research institutions to experience project delays due to the inability to obtain GPUs.
Therefore, these companies must first ensure that their U.S. customers can purchase the chips before they can export them to countries like China, which are subject to U.S. embargoes. The U.S. Congress once hoped to include it in the National Defense Authorization Act, but sources familiar with the matter revealed that the final version did not include it in the "GAIN AI Act."
National security clashes with technology; export control stances locked in a tug-of-war.
This proposal sparked fierce debate in Washington, with national security advocates and AI security activists concerned that China's acquisition of high-end US-made chips would strengthen its military and economic capabilities. However, several major US tech companies and Nvidia expressed their opposition, arguing that the bill would distort the market and weaken US competitiveness, and emphasizing that their companies would not prevent US customers from purchasing GPUs.
Huang Renxun personally went to the front lines, meeting with Trump to try and clarify things.
At the height of tension, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang traveled to Washington to meet with President Trump and several key lawmakers. Outside House Speaker James Johnson's office, he stated that his trip was to "answer questions about AI."
He later publicly stated that it was a wise decision for the US Congress not to include the "GAIN AI Act" in the bill, and said that the bill would be even more harmful to the United States than the "AI proliferation rule".
The White House is divided on whether to ease restrictions.
There is no consensus within the US government regarding chip export policies:
AI crypto czar David Sacks has repeatedly publicly supported exporting more US-made AI chips to China, believing it would help maintain America's technological lead.
Other cabinet officials were even more opposed, especially reluctant to approve Nvidia's Blackwell GPU.
However, the White House ultimately sided with Nvidia, opposing the inclusion of the "GAIN AI Act." The Trump administration is also still evaluating whether to approve the export of the H200 chip, as its performance is superior to all domestically developed Chinese chips.
Congressional concerns are rising, with national security advocates demanding tighter export controls on AI chips.
Lawmakers who supported the legislation argued that the Trump administration's stance on AI chip exports to China was too lenient, and therefore wanted to use the bill to establish clear boundaries to prevent China from accelerating its military and economic growth through US chips. Despite the failure of this initial proposal, they have begun pushing for a new "Safe Chip Act," intending to enshrine existing restrictions directly into law.
Cloud giants have differing attitudes, while major US corporate clients actually support the legislation.
Although Nvidia successfully blocked the "GAIN AI Act," major US cloud customers such as Microsoft and Amazon actually supported the bill. The reason is simple: if the bill stipulated that GPUs should be supplied to US customers first, these cloud giants would be able to obtain them faster and more easily than Chinese customers.
This article, which discusses how Huang Jen-hsun's lobbying efforts were successful in removing restrictions on Chinese chip exports from the US defense bill, first appeared on ABMedia, a ABMedia .
