The Warning

Jensen Huang delivered a stark warning: China is going to beat the US in the AI race.

The Nvidia CEO told the Financial Times that China's lower energy costs and looser regulations give it a decisive advantage. "China is going to win the AI race," Huang said Wednesday at the FT's Future of AI Summit.

Those are remarkable comments from the head of the world's most valuable company, which just hit $5 trillion market cap last week.

Why China Wins

Huang identified two main factors giving China the edge.

First, energy costs. China has boosted subsidies for large data centers run by tech giants including ByteDance, Alibaba, and Tencent. Local governments beefed up power incentives after Chinese companies complained about increased costs of using domestic semiconductors from Huawei and Cambricon.

"Power is free," Huang said, referring to China's heavy subsidies.

Second, regulation. Huang criticized the west for being held back by "cynicism" and called for "more optimism." He specifically warned about potential US state regulations that could result in "50 new regulations."

The contrast with China's approach couldn't be starker - Beijing subsidizes rather than restricts AI development.

The Chip Ban Context

Huang's comments come after the Trump administration maintained the ban on Nvidia selling its most advanced chips to China. This happened following last week's meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Trump said the US won't let China use Nvidia's cutting-edge Blackwell chips. "The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States," Trump told CBS. "We will let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced."

Trump had previously suggested making a deal on a modified Blackwell version that was "enhanced in a negative way" - meaning downgraded. But no such deal materialized from the Xi meeting.

The DeepSeek Shock

US concern over Chinese AI progress intensified after DeepSeek, a small Chinese AI lab, stunned the world in January with its sophisticated large language model.

The DeepSeek release sparked frenzied debate in Silicon Valley about whether better-resourced US companies like OpenAI and Anthropic could defend their technical edge.

That episode showed China doesn't necessarily need access to the most advanced chips to make AI breakthroughs.

Huang's Previous Warnings

Huang has previously warned that American AI models aren't far ahead of Chinese rivals. He's urged the US government to open the chip market to keep the rest of the world dependent on American technology.

Nvidia held a developer conference in Washington last week, underscoring efforts to win government allies. The company wants to maximize its addressable market, which means getting permission to sell more chips to China.

The Revenue Issue

Nvidia and AMD previously agreed to pay the US government 15% of Chinese revenues from sales of existing AI processors tailored for that market. But the US hasn't adopted regulations needed to allow such sales.

That leaves Nvidia unable to fully capitalize on the Chinese market despite being willing to share revenue with the government.

The Bottom Line

Huang's "China will win" warning puts the CEO of America's most valuable company at odds with US policy. He's essentially saying export restrictions are backfiring by ceding the AI race to China rather than slowing Chinese progress.

His argument has logic: China subsidizes energy making AI development cheaper, while the US piles on regulations making it more expensive. China moves fast with centralized decision-making, while the US could face 50 different state-level AI regulations.

But Huang has a massive financial incentive to say this. Nvidia desperately wants access to the Chinese market. Warning that restrictions are helping China win is a convenient argument for why those restrictions should be lifted.

The energy subsidy point is real though. When China makes power effectively free for AI data centers, it creates competitive advantage that's hard to match. US companies pay market rates for electricity while Chinese rivals get subsidized power.

Trump's refusal to allow advanced Blackwell chip sales reflects national security concerns that AI capabilities could be used militarily. Huang's business interests conflict with those security considerations.

Whether China actually wins the AI race depends on many factors beyond chip access and energy costs - talent, innovation, market size, and application development all matter. But Huang's warning that current US policy is counterproductive deserves serious consideration, even if his motives are self-interested.