Nvidia, AMD to pay 15% of China chip revenues for export licenses

Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices have agreed to pay the U.S. government 15 percent of their revenues from selling certain artificial intelligence chips to China in exchange for export licenses to resume those sales. The arrangement, described as a quid pro quo at the heart of an unusually direct government intervention in corporate earnings, follows the granting of export licenses for Nvidia’s H20 and AMD’s MI308 chips and comes despite ongoing national security concerns about Chinese access to advanced AI technology.

Under the deal, Nvidia would remit 15 percent of revenues from Chinese sales of its H20 chips, while AMD would do the same from Chinese sales of the MI308. The companies have said they will comply with the new licensing framework, noting they have not shipped H20 chips to China for some months and that the licenses aim to enable them to compete in China and in global markets. The administration indicated that the revenue-sharing mechanism is intended to support export controls while allowing access to a critical market for U.S. chipmakers.

The move emerges amid a broader context of a tense U.S.–China technology rivalry. For years, Washington has restricted...