1. In-Depth Analysis of the Political Background: The Survival Rules of NVIDIA in the Sino-U.S. Technological Game
The political context of Jensen Huang’s visit to China is essentially a strategic calibration for multinational companies amid the global technological cold war. The following key details reveal its deeper logic:
1. The “Triple Strangulation” of Tightening U.S. Policies
Upgraded export controls: In 2025, the Trump administration reinstated the chip ban against China, lowering the computing power threshold from4800 TOPS to3000 TOPS, directly impacting the competitiveness of NVIDIA’s custom H20 chips, leading to a financial pressure of approximately55 million dollars in order delays. Supply chain scrutiny: The U.S. requires TSMC, Samsung, and other foundries to submit details of their supply to China, forcing NVIDIA to accelerate its technical adaptation with local wafer fabs (such as SMIC) to avoid supply risks. Allied pressure coordination: Japan and the Netherlands simultaneously restricted the export of photoresists and DUV lithography machines to China, forcing NVIDIA to adjust its supply chain layout, moving some packaging and testing processes to Malaysia and Vietnam.
2. NVIDIA’s “Chinese-style Breakthrough”
High-level dialogue mechanism: Jensen Huang’s talks with Ren Hongbin, president of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, focused on establishing a “technology compliance whitelist” to seek special export channels for restricted chips. Talent localization fortress: NVIDIA has nearly4000 employees in China, with the Beijing R&D center responsible for30% of the CUDA ecosystem optimization tasks, and a0.9% ultra-low attrition rate ensuring continuity in technological iteration. Policy hedging experiments: By opening part of the AI framework source code (such as TensorRT), NVIDIA seeks to gain eligibility to participate in the formulation of national standards for China’s AI computing power network, looking for policy leniency.
3. The “Gray Zone” of Sino-U.S. Competition
Competition for technical standards: The “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Governance Norms” led by China require foreign companies to localize data storage, and NVIDIA plans to build dedicated supercomputing centers in Guizhou and Inner Mongolia to meet regulatory requirements. Third-party market cooperation: NVIDIA strengthens cooperation with neutral country projects such as NEOM in Saudi Arabia and AI Singapore in Singapore, building a “de-Americanized” technology transit station to indirectly serve the Chinese market. Battlefield of public opinion: Jensen Huang emphasizes “technology knows no borders” in public, downplaying the U.S. “China threat theory” in an attempt to alleviate the trust crisis of the Chinese public towards NVIDIA.
4. Historical Reflection and Future Projection
The shadow of Huawei sanctions: After Huawei was placed on the entity list in 2019, its chip development grew against the trend, and NVIDIA is wary of the accelerated domestic substitution in China, building a “firewall” through investments in local companies like Biren Technology and Moore Threads. Reference to Tesla’s precedent: Following Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory model, NVIDIA plans to establish the world’s first “compliance production zone” for AI chips in Tianjin, achieving full localization of chip design, manufacturing, and testing.
Key Insights: Jensen Huang’s visit to Beijing is by no means an isolated event, but rather a “precise surgical operation” by multinational giants under the Sino-U.S. technological iron curtain—maintaining U.S. regulatory trust while seizing the scale dividend of the Chinese market. When the “Leather Jacket King” changes into a suit, it reflects the historic shift of the global technology industry from “free competition” to “controlled cooperation”.
2. NVIDIA’s Strategic Depth in the Chinese Market: From Technical Ecosystem to Industrial Lifeline
1. Talent Reserve and R&D Network
Local talent highland: NVIDIA has nearly4000 employees in China, covering three major R&D centers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, with the Beijing team responsible for30% of the CUDA ecosystem optimization tasks, supporting the underlying adaptation of global AI development frameworks. Engineer culture penetration: Jensen Huang’s visits to Shenzhen, Beijing, and Shanghai in January 2025, through employee appreciation events, strengthen the cohesion of the local team, with the Shanghai Lujiazui team dinner viewed internally as a “technical mobilization ceremony”.
2. Supply Chain Localization Reconstruction
Deepening foundry alliances: To cope with U.S. export controls, NVIDIA accelerates cooperation with local manufacturers such as SMIC and Changjiang Electronics Technology, promoting the transfer of the packaging and testing processes of the H20 chip to China, with the domestic supply chain accounting for28% in the first quarter of 2025. Capacity risk avoidance layout: By establishing “backup production lines” in packaging plants in Penang, Malaysia, and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, NVIDIA ensures that even if Sino-U.S. technological friction escalates, it can maintain resilience in chip supply to the Chinese market.
3. Monopolistic Advantage of Developer Ecosystem
CUDA ecosystem barrier: 150,000 developers in China are deeply reliant on the CUDA platform, and domestic frameworks such as Baidu PaddlePaddle and Huawei MindSpore have yet to break through its technological moat. NVIDIA further binds the developer ecosystem by opening the source code of tools like TensorRT. Government-enterprise cooperation penetration: Collaborating with local governments to build AI supercomputing centers (such as the Inner Mongolia computing power hub), NVIDIA enters new infrastructure projects like smart cities and industrial internet through a “technology for orders” model, with related order scale expected to exceed1.2 billion dollars in 2024.
4. Market Voice and Policy Game
Pricing power control: Despite the performance shrinkage of the H20 chip, NVIDIA maintains a premium of15%-20% over Chinese enterprise customers due to the irreplaceability of the CUDA ecosystem, with competitors like Huawei Ascend not yet posing a substantial threat. Government relations management: Jensen Huang’s two visits to China in 2025 both involved talks with senior officials of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, promoting the establishment of a “technology compliance whitelist” to attempt to include custom chips in the government procurement priority directory, offsetting the impact of U.S. export controls.
5. Capital and Data Dual-Drive
Investment in local enterprises: By strategically investing in Chinese GPU startups like Biren Technology and Moore Threads, NVIDIA not only avoids U.S. technology transfer restrictions but also indirectly acquires data from Chinese AI scenarios to feed back into global product iterations. Data center positioning: Deploying 30 AI computing power nodes in China, providing privatized model training services for companies like ByteDance and Tencent, NVIDIA controls over70% of the AI computing power infrastructure of Chinese internet giants.
Strategic Insights: NVIDIA’s influence in the Chinese market has transcended mere technology output, constructing an irreplaceable industrial control power through a triadic model of “ecosystem binding – supply chain nesting – policy lobbying”. When Jensen Huang declares, “China is a very important market for NVIDIA,” the underlying message is that “the Chinese market has become an indispensable pillar of NVIDIA’s global hegemony”.
Conclusion From being abandoned by Sony with the NV1 chip to leading the global AI revolution, Jensen Huang has validated the philosophy of “determining a lifelong career, time becomes an ally” over 30 years. This visit to Beijing is not only a business game but also a metaphor for the era of technological sovereignty—where in the new world of computing power as power, the boundaries of cooperation and confrontation are being rewritten.
（This analysis is based on public information and does not constitute investment advice）