Critical issue for Trump-Putin meeting will be securing 'unconditional ceasefire': Michael Froman
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Yahoo
7 minutes ago
- Yahoo
China Urges Firms to Avoid Nvidia H20 Chips After Trump Resumes Sales
(Bloomberg) -- Beijing has urged local companies to avoid using Nvidia Corp.'s H20 processors, particularly for government-related purposes, complicating the chipmaker's return to China after the Trump administration reversed an effective US ban on such sales. Sunseeking Germans Face Swiss Backlash Over Alpine Holiday Congestion New York Warns of $34 Billion Budget Hole, Biggest Since 2009 Crisis To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain A New Stage for the Theater That Gave America Shakespeare in the Park Over the past few weeks, Chinese authorities have sent notices to a range of firms discouraging use of the less-advanced semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The guidance was particularly strong against the use of H20s for any government or national security-related work by state enterprises or private companies, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is sensitive. The letters didn't, however, constitute an outright ban on H20 use, according to the people. Industry analysts broadly agree that Chinese companies still covet those chips, which perform quite well in certain crucial AI applications. President Donald Trump said Monday that the processor 'still has a market' in the Asian country despite also calling it 'obsolete.' Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. both recently secured Washington's approval to resume lower-end AI chip sales to China, on the controversial and legally questionable condition that they give the US government a 15% cut of the related revenue. But even with Trump's team on board, the two companies face the challenge that their Chinese customers are under Beijing's pressure to purchase domestic chips instead. Beijing's overall push affects AI accelerators from AMD in addition to Nvidia, one of the people said, though it's unclear whether any letters specifically mentioned AMD's MI308 chip. Shares of Chinese AI chip designer Cambricon Technologies Corp. surged to their daily limit of 20% on the news of China's guidance, leading a rally in peers such as Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. Beijing's stance could limit Trump's ability to turn his export control about-face into a windfall for government coffers, a deal that highlighted his administration's transactional approach to national security policies long treated as nonnegotiable. Still, Chinese companies may not be ready to jump ship to local semiconductors. 'Chips from domestic manufacturers are improving dramatically in quality, but they might not be as versatile for specific workloads that China's domestic AI industry hopes to focus on,' said Homin Lee, a senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier in Singapore. Lee added that he anticipates 'strong' demand for the chips the Trump administration is allowing Nvidia and AMD to sell. Rosenblatt Securities analyst Kevin Cassidy said he doesn't anticipate that Nvidia's processor sales to China will be affected because 'Chinese companies are going to want to use the best chips available.' Nvidia and AMD's chips are superior to local alternatives, he said. Beijing asked companies about that issue in some of its letters, according to one of the people, posing questions such as why they buy Nvidia H20 chips over local versions, whether that's a necessary choice given domestic options, and whether they've found any security concerns in the Nvidia hardware. The notices coincide with state media reports that cast doubt on the security and reliability of H20 processors. Chinese regulators have raised those concerns directly with Nvidia, which has repeatedly denied that its chips contain such vulnerabilities. The Financial Times reported that some Chinese companies are planning to decrease orders of Nvidia chips in response to the letters. Right now, the people said, China's most stringent chip guidance is limited to sensitive applications, a situation that bears similarities to the way Beijing restricted Tesla Inc. vehicles and Apple Inc. iPhones in certain institutions and locations over security concerns. China's government also at one point barred the use of Micron Technology Inc. chips in critical infrastructure. It's possible that Beijing may extend its heavier-handed Nvidia and AMD guidance to a wider range of settings, according to one person with direct knowledge of the deliberations, who said that those conversations are in early stages. AMD declined to comment on Beijing's notices, while Nvidia said in a statement that 'the H20 is not a military product or for government infrastructure.' China has ample supplies of domestic chips, Nvidia said, and 'won't and never has relied on American chips for government operations.' China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Cyberspace Administration of China didn't respond to faxed requests for comment on this story, which is based on interviews with more than a half-dozen people familiar with Beijing's policy discussions. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment. The Chinese government's posture raises questions about the Trump administration's explanation for why the US is allowing those exports mere months after effectively banning such sales. Multiple senior US officials have said their policy reversal was the result of trade talks with China, but Beijing has publicly indicated that the resumed H20 shipments weren't part of any bilateral deal. China's recent notices to companies suggest that the Asian country may not have sought such a concession from Washington in the first place. Beijing's concerns are twofold. For starters, Chinese officials are worried that Nvidia chips could have location-tracking and remote-shutdown capabilities — a suggestion that Nvidia has vehemently denied. Trump officials are actively exploring whether location tracking could be used to help curtail suspected smuggling of restricted components into China, and lawmakers have introduced a bill that would require location verification for advanced AI chips. Second, Beijing is intensely focused on developing its domestic chip capabilities, and wants Chinese companies to shift away from Western chips in favor of local offerings. Officials have previously urged Chinese firms to choose domestic semiconductors over Nvidia H20 processors, Bloomberg reported last September, and have introduced energy efficiency standards that the H20 chip doesn't meet. Nvidia designed the H20 chip specifically for Chinese customers to abide by years of US restrictions on sales of its more advanced hardware, curbs designed to limit Beijing's access to AI that could benefit the Chinese military. The H20 chip has less computational power than Nvidia's top offerings, but its strong memory bandwidth is quite well suited to the inference stage of AI development, when models recognize patterns and draw conclusions. That's made it a desirable product to companies like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. in China, where domestic chip champion Huawei Technologies Co. is struggling to produce enough advanced components to meet market demand. By one estimate from Biden officials — who considered but did not implement controls on H20 sales — losing access to that Nvidia chip would make it three to six times more expensive for Chinese companies to run inference on advanced AI models. 'Beijing appears to be using regulatory uncertainty to create a captive market sufficiently sized to absorb Huawei's supply, while still allowing purchases of H20s to meet actual demands,' said Lennart Heim, an AI-focused researcher at RAND, of China's push for companies to avoid American AI chips. 'This signals that domestic alternatives remain inadequate even as China pressures foreign suppliers.' In his remarks Monday, Trump said China's Huawei already offers chips comparable to the Nvidia H20, echoing previous remarks by officials in his administration who've defended the decision to resume H20 exports partly on those grounds. The US should keep the Chinese AI ecosystem reliant on less-advanced American technology for as long as possible, these officials say, in order to deprive Huawei of the revenue and know-how that would come from a broader customer base. Other administration officials have strongly objected to that logic, Bloomberg has reported, arguing that resuming H20 exports will only embolden China's tech champions and bolster the country's overall computing power. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and other Trump officials have also claimed that the H20 move was part of a deal to improve American access to Chinese rare-earth minerals — despite the Trump team's previous assertions that such an arrangement wasn't on the table. 'As the Chinese deliver their magnets, then the H20s will come off,' Lutnick said last month. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in late July that the magnet issue had been 'solved.' The first Nvidia H20 and AMD MI308 licenses arrived a bit over a week after Bessent's declaration — after Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang met with the president and both companies agreed to share their China revenue with the US government. --With assistance from Yanping Li, Sangmi Cha and Emily Forgash. (Updates with additional analyst commentary in ninth paragraph.) Why It's Actually a Good Time to Buy a House, According to a Zillow Economist Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan The Social Media Trend Machine Is Spitting Out Weirder and Weirder Results The Game Starts at 8. The Robbery Starts at 8:01 Klarna Cashed In on 'Buy Now, Pay Later.' Now It Wants to Be a Bank ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. 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Los Angeles Times
8 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Texas Republicans plan another special session to deliver Trump more GOP congressional seats
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Republican leaders said Tuesday that they were prepared to end their stalemated special session and immediately begin another standoff with Democrats in the GOP's efforts to redraw congressional maps as directed by President Donald Trump. It's the latest indication that Trump's push to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections will become an extended standoff that promises to reach multiple statehouses controlled by both major parties. Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows confirmed the plans during a brief session Tuesday morning that marked another failure to meet the required attendance standards to conduct official business because dozens of Democrats have left the state to stymie the GOP's partisan gerrymandering attempts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Burrows said from the House floor that lawmakers will not attempt to reconvene again until Friday. If Democrats are still absent — and they have given no indication that they plan to return — the speaker said Republicans will end the current session and Gov. Greg Abbott will immediately call another. The governor, a Trump ally, confirmed his intentions in a statement. 'The Special Session #2 agenda will have the exact same agenda, with the potential to add more items critical to Texans,' Abbott wrote. 'There will be no reprieve for the derelict Democrats who fled the state and abandoned their duty to the people who elected them. I will continue to call special session after special session until we get this Texas first agenda passed.' Abbott called the current session with an extensive agenda that included disaster relief for floods that killed more than 130 people. Democrats balked when Abbott added Trump's redistricting idea to the agenda. Burrows on Tuesday did not mention redistricting but chided Democrats for not showing up for debate on the flood response package. The redistricting legislation would reshape the state's congressional districts in a design aimed at sending five more Republicans to Washington. The scheme is part of Trump's push to shore up Republicans' narrow House majority and avoid a repeat of his first presidency, when the 2018 midterms restored Democrats to a House majority that blocked his agenda and twice impeached him. Current maps nationally put Democrats within three seats of retaking the House majority — with only several dozen competitive districts across 435 total seats. Texas Republicans have issued civil warrants for the absent Democrats. Because they are out of state, those lawmakers are beyond the reach of Texas authorities. Burrows said Tuesday that absent Democrats would have to pay for all state government costs for law enforcement officials attempting to track them down. Burrows has said state troopers and others have run up 'six figures in overtime costs' trying to corral Democratic legislators. Barrow and Lathan write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta.
New York Post
8 minutes ago
- New York Post
Trump threatens to sue ‘loser' Fed chair Powell: ‘Steve 'Manouychin' really gave me a ‘beauty'
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday said his next line of attack against 'loser' Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for refusing to lower interest rates could be a lawsuit over his $2.5 billion headquarters renovation. The president even slammed his own first-term treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, for recommending the head of the Central Bank. 'Jerome 'Too Late' Powell must NOW lower the rate. Steve 'Manouychin' really gave me a 'beauty' when he pushed this loser,' Trump wrote, misspelling the name of his then-cabinet member who encouraged him to pick Powell in 2017. Advertisement 4 President Trump — frustrated by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's refusal to lower interest rates — has accused Powell of squandering public resources on a $2.5 billion headquarters renovation. AP 'The damage he has done by always being Too Late is incalculable. Fortunately, the economy is sooo good that we've blown through Powell and the complacent Board. I am, though, considering allowing a major lawsuit against Powell to proceed because of the horrible, and grossly incompetent, job he has done in managing the construction of the Fed Buildings,' the president said. He added that the construction project 'should have been a $50 Million Dollar fix up.' Advertisement 4 Trump slammed his former treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin (right, next to his wife Louise Linton), for even recommending Powell in his first term. AP It's unclear what the lawsuit's claims would be. Powell's press office did not immediately respond to a Post request for comment. The president slammed Powell shortly after the monthly release of inflation data for July, with the Consumer Price Index showing a 2.7% annual increase in prices — remaining above the Fed's 2% target but well below a 9.1% peak under former President Joe Biden in June 2022. Powell has refused to lower interest rates at all in 2025 — with Trump alleging political motivations after three cuts last year, including two reductions shortly before the presidential election. During that race, Vice President Kamala Harris faced criticism for her role in the incumbent administration's economic program. Advertisement 4 Trump said Tuesday that he may sue Powell. Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto/Shutterstock Powell has justified the unchanged rates by citing the unknown effect of Trump's tariffs on inflation. The Fed's next meeting to discuss possible rate cuts is scheduled for Sept. 16. High interest rates have made it more expensive to finance home purchases and for businesses and consumers to take out loans, including to lease cars and reduce credit-card balances. Advertisement Trump and his team recently appeared to back away from allegations that Powell may have broken the law over the government building renovations, which could have provided a potential justification for termination. 4 Trump tours the building's construction site with Powell last month. REUTERS Congressional Republicans had suggested that Powell lied to a Senate committee — a crime punishable by five years in prison — by testifying that the building lacked various luxury features, insisting that plans had changed. Trump's budget chief, Russ Vought, then wrote to Powell last month pointing out an apparent Catch-22: that he may have violated the National Capital Planning Act by making unapproved changes to plans. Powell replied that he considered the changes minor enough that disclosure was not required. Trump, a billionaire real-estate developer, said he had no plans to fire Powell after touring the site on July 24 — attributing cost overruns to wasteful decisions including to retroactively build basements and parking spots beneath historic buildings just north of the National Mall. Trump has said he wants Powell to resign but that if he won't do so, he plans to empower a replacement when his term expires in May 2026 who will immediately move to lower interest rates by more than 2%.
