Washington: US chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay a portion of their Chinese chip sales revenues to the US government, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday. In exchange for 15% of their sales revenues to the Chinese market, the US government will grant export licenses to sell Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 chips in China.

According to Anadolu Agency, the move followed the controversy concerning the H20 chip exports to China. In April, Washington restricted Nvidia from selling its H20 chips to China, escalating a tech war with Beijing, and required an export license to sell the chips for the "indefinite future." However, the Trump administration reversed course last month, pledging to remove the licensing restrictions.

The decision also came after China accused Nvidia's H20 chips of having tracking and location capabilities and remote shutdown technologies. Last week, Nvidia denied these claims, stating that its chips have no "backdoors or kill switches." Nvidia's Chief Security Officer David Reber emphasized that the GPUs do not possess such features.

In response, a Chinese official media agency called Nvidia's H20 chip unsafe and advised Chinese consumers to avoid purchasing AI processors made for the Chinese market. Yuyuan Tantian, a representative of China Central Television, alleged that the US government was attempting to install "backdoors" in the H20 chip, despite Nvidia's denials.

Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang met with US President Donald Trump last week, according to the FT. In a statement to the Financial Times, Nvidia stated, "We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets." Trump had previously threatened to impose up to 100% tariffs on semiconductor and chip exports, except for companies manufacturing in the US.