The Trump administration's recent decision to permit Nvidia to sell advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips to China has sparked significant concern among AI industry leaders and national security experts. Dario Amodei, CEO of leading AI company Anthropic, issued a stark warning during a panel discussion on artificial general intelligence (AGI) at Davos, comparing the move to providing nuclear weapons technology to North Korea.

Amodei articulated profound fears that shipping such powerful AI chips risks empowering China with the crucial compute power necessary to develop super-intelligent AI. He emphasized the potentially far-reaching national security implications of this decision. "Are we going to, you know, sell nuclear weapons to North Korea, and, you know, because that produces some profit for Boeing?" Amodei questioned, highlighting his deep apprehension regarding the trade-off between commercial profit and national security.

These concerns are echoed by others in the field, including Saif Khan, who previously served as director of technology and national security on the White House National Security Council under former US President Joe Biden. Khan has similarly cautioned that the rule could substantially boost China's AI capabilities. Amodei also touched upon the broader risks associated with evolving AI technology, noting that while AI companies like Anthropic are racing to develop AGI—systems capable of outperforming human intelligence—such technology inherently carries risks that could threaten humanity.

The approval from the Trump administration last week greenlights China-bound sales of Nvidia's H200, described as its second-most powerful AI chip. This move effectively eases the Biden-era restrictions that had previously barred the sales of advanced AI chips to China. However, the new regulations include specific safeguards: the chips will undergo review by a third-party testing lab to confirm their technical AI capabilities before export, and China cannot receive more than 50% of the total amount of chips sold to American customers.

Despite the widespread concerns, the Trump administration defends its decision as strategically necessary. White House AI czar David Sacks explained that allowing controlled exports of Nvidia and AMD chips could serve to discourage Chinese competitors, such as the heavily sanctioned Huawei, from accelerating their efforts to develop competing advanced chip designs. The administration believes this approach can simultaneously preserve the market dominance of US companies in the AI chip sector.