CEO Jensen Huang underscored China's growing influence in artificial intelligence (AI), describing its progress as undeniable and impressive.In an interview with web portal Stratechery, Huang said the rapid rise of Chinese AI companies such as DeepSeek is impressive.

"China’s doing fantastic; 50% of the world’s AI researchers are Chinese and you’re not going to hold them back, you’re not going to stop them from advancing AI. Let’s face it, DeepSeek is deeply excellent work," he said.

This was in reference to export controls the US has implemented on advanced chips (such as Nvidia's A100/H100) to prevent uncontrolled AI diffusion to China and other countries.

In simple terms, AI diffusion refers to efforts to slow or control the spread of advanced AI technologies (especially foundational models and compute infrastructure) to geopolitical rivals.

He said the idea to not have America compete in the Chinese market, where 50% of the developers are, makes no sense from a computing infrastructure and computing architectural perspective. "We ought to go and give American companies the opportunity to compete in China," he said.

US tech firms Nvidia, AMD secure AI deals as Trump tours Gulf statesHuang warned that if US companies don’t compete in China, it will in turn allow the Chinese to build a rich ecosystem and new platforms, which would not be American.

Earlier this month, Nvidia announced partnerships in the Gulf region, notably with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, to advance AI infrastructure and capabilities. Huang said those countries have an "extraordinary opportunity".

"They have an abundance of energy and a shortage of labour, and the potential of their countries is limited by the amount of labour that they have, the amount of people that they have," he said.