Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), CEO of artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, met on Friday with US President Donald Trump as the company suffered a rough week on Wall Street over competition with China and the threat of tariffs on semiconductors.
Trump said he would put tariffs on imports of computer chips to the US, which would punish Nvidia’s business that depends on imported components, mainly from Taiwan.
“It was a good meeting, but eventually we’re going to put tariffs on chips,” Trump told reporters afterward.
Photo: AFP
High-end versions of Nvidia’s chips face US export restrictions to the major market of China, part of Washington’s efforts to slow its Asian adversary’s advancement in the strategic technology.
That policy came under scrutiny this week when Chinese start-up DeepSeek achieved widespread adoption of its latest AI model that was developed without access to Nvidia’s export-blocked H100 chips.
After the DeepSeek breakthrough, US media reported the Trump administration was exploring ways to expand the restrictions to Nvidia’s lower-end chips.
The DeepSeek model triggered a plunge in Nvidia’s stock on Monday, wiping out nearly US$600 billion in market value — Wall Street’s largest single-day loss ever.
“We appreciated the opportunity to meet with President Trump and discuss semiconductors and AI policy,” an Nvidia spokesperson said. “Jensen and the president discussed the importance of strengthening US technology and AI leadership.”
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
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