‘U.S. Chip Ban Has Cost Us $15B,’ Says Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

At the Computex trade show in Taipei, Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said that the U.S. ban on its H20 AI chips to China has cost the company $15 billion in lost sales. In an interview with tech analyst Ben Thompson, Huang described the ban as “enormously costly” and “deeply painful,” as Nvidia expects to take a $5.5 billion charge in its first fiscal quarter due to unsold inventory. He mentioned that no other company has written off that much at once, and said that it means the government is losing around $3 billion in potential taxes.

Although Nvidia has made several weaker versions of its chips for China to meet tightening U.S. export rules, Huang said that there’s nothing left to cut from its current chip design. The latest ban came as the U.S. started investigating Nvidia chips that were being used in China, after Chinese startup, DeepSeek, released a cheap AI model that was likely powered by banned Nvidia chips. Unsurprisingly, Huang stressed that banning the H20 won’t stop China’s AI progress since its AI market is worth $50 billion per year, and half of the world’s AI researchers are Chinese.

At the same time, Chinese tech company Huawei is moving quickly to replace Nvidia’s banned chips and is expected to launch chips even more powerful than Nvidia’s H100. Indeed, Huang called Huawei a “formidable” and “world-class” company. Although Nvidia stock has dropped recently due to Trump’s tariffs and chip restrictions, it rebounded after Trump removed a rule that would have limited chip exports to most other countries. Interestingly, Huang still supports Trump’s overall goals and said he believes the President wants to compete while also allowing room for cooperation.

Is NVDA a Good Stock to Buy?

Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on NVDA stock based on 34 Buys, five Holds, and one Sell assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. Furthermore, the average NVDA price target of $164.51 per share implies 21.8% upside potential.

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