The CEOs of the three major chip giants in the United States will lobby the Biden administration not to tighten chip exports to China

On July 15th, Beijing time, insiders reported that the CEOs of the three major US chip giants will travel to Washington next week to hold talks with US government officials and lawmakers, hoping that the Biden administration will not introduce new restrictions on chip exports to China.

According to insiders, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will come to Washington to discuss the Biden administration's China policy, and meet with U.S. officials to discuss market conditions, export controls, and other matters affecting the company's business. However, it is currently unclear who these executives will meet with.

According to media reports in June this year, the Biden government is studying new restrictions on chip exports to China. In October last year, the United States introduced regulations restricting chip manufacturers from exporting high-end AI chips to China. In order to comply with export regulations, Nvidia has developed downgraded chips for China, such as A800. However, the new restrictions being considered by the United States may not even allow the export of these chips. The new restrictions may be introduced before the end of July.

People familiar with the matter said that Kissinger, An Meng and Jensen Huang planned to lobby American officials not to expand export restrictions on certain chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China. Although they did not expect to prevent all the actions planned by the Biden administration, they perceived a window of opportunity and hoped to persuade the Biden team through lobbying that the escalation of export controls would harm the US government's ongoing relationship with China. The goal of their meeting this time is to help US government officials understand the potential impact of tightening chip exports to China.

These three companies all have a large amount of business in China. Qualcomm supplies chips to mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, and over 60% of the company's revenue comes from China. Intel CEO Kissinger just visited China earlier this month to showcase the company's latest AI chips, and he sees China as the company's largest source of revenue. China contributes about a quarter of Intel's revenue. As for Nvidia, China contributes about one-fifth of its revenue.

The new export restrictions proposed by the United States will have the greatest impact on Nvidia, whose leadership in the AI chip market helped it achieve a market value of $1 trillion earlier this year. However, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress previously said that the new additional restrictions are not expected to have an immediate material impact on the company's financial performance.

Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia declined to comment.