The Trump-Xi summit was about AI chips. Beijing doesn't even want'em.
Author: Protik Ganguly
Trump landed in Beijing on May 13 flanked by Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Tim Cook of Apple, and Elon Musk of Tesla. The summit was billed as a trade reset following the May 12 truce that cut US tariffs from 145% to 30%. The real agenda was hiding in plain sight: who gets to sell AI chips to whom, and whether either side actually wants the deal to close.
The formal discussions covered what diplomats call the three Bs — Boeing, beef, and beans. These are the visible agenda. The invisible agenda was semiconductors. Specifically, whether Nvidia would be permitted to sell its H200 chips to China's largest technology companies — Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, and JD.com — a deal Washington had already approved in December 2025.
Here is the detail most coverage missed. Not a single H200 chip has shipped to China since that approval. The chips are not stuck because Washington won't allow it. Washington already has. Roughly ten Chinese firms hold approved US export licences for up to 75,000 units each. The chips are not moving because Beijing won't let its own companies take delivery. Chinese policymakers are steering platforms toward Huawei's Ascend chips instead — a structural bet that the domestic performance gap will close fast enough to justify the lock-in. DeepSeek's recent results suggest they may be right.
So Jensen Huang flew to Beijing at the last minute, called the summit 'one of the most important in human history,' and declined to comment on chip sales specifically. Then on Wednesday's earnings call, he delivered a more startling admission: China 'has all the chips they need' despite US bans. Aggressive decoupling, he acknowledged, has forced Beijing into self-sufficiency — turning Huawei into a global competitor that now exports its technology worldwide. Nvidia's Q1 guidance assumed zero China data center revenue. Huang's assessment of when that changes: 'Over time, the market will open.' That is not a timeline. That is a hope.
What didn't happen is as significant as what did. No binding agreement on AI development. No framework for AI safety cooperation. No resolution on Taiwan. No progress on rare earth export controls. Senator Schumer called the chip deal "dangerous." The Council on Foreign Relations noted that the US has not imposed any new technology controls since taking office — meaning Beijing has benefited from a freeze it did not have to negotiate for.
Xi told the assembled CEOs that China's door would "open wider." Apple needs Chinese manufacturing. Tesla needs Chinese EV market access. Nvidia needs Chinese chip revenue. Each company arrived with a specific ask dressed as diplomacy. What emerged was a managed détente — a temporary lowering of temperature between two powers that remain structurally competitive.
The chips may be approved. Beijing doesn't want them. The cold war continues on its own terms.
References
Council on Foreign Relations. (2026, May 13). How Trump should approach AI talks with China. https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-trump-should-approach-ai-talks-with-china-targeted-dialogue-maximum-pressure
Time. (2026, May 15). How AI was the elephant in the room at the Trump-Xi summit. https://time.com/article/2026/05/15/trump-xi-us-china-summit-ai-semiconductor-chips/
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