Nvidia Corp. co-founder Jensen Huang joined U.S. President Donald Trump on his visit to China as a last-minute addition, thrusting artificial intelligence and technology into the spotlight before a high-stakes Beijing summit.
Huang is among several U.S. business leaders, including Apple Inc.'s Tim Cook and Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk, on Trump's first overseas trip since waging war in the Middle East. The 36-hour meeting with Xi Jinping is expected to encompass the war, tariffs, and the self-ruled island of Taiwan. The list of attendees until Tuesday had not included Huang, whose company makes the chips at the heart of the AI boom and has been pushing for greater leeway in a market he has identified as a $50 billion opportunity.
The Nvidia chief executive was spotted on the tarmac boarding the presidential plane, and Trump later confirmed his attendance in a social media post, saying it was an honor to have Huang and other business leaders as part of the U.S. delegation. Trump will also be joined by Boeing Co.'s Kelly Ortberg and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s David Solomon, among others.
"I will be asking President Xi, a Leader of extraordinary distinction, to 'open up' China so that these brilliant people can work their magic, and help bring the People's Republic to an even higher level!" Trump said in the post. "In fact, I promise, that when we are together, which will be in a matter of hours, I will make that my very first request."
It is unclear whether Trump will raise with Xi any concerns that relate specifically to Nvidia, whose shares extended gains to more than three percent in after-hours Blue Ocean trading. The big-ticket item would be seeking Beijing's approval for Chinese customers to buy Nvidia's advanced H200 AI chips. Those products, which are used to train and run models like OpenAI's ChatGPT, have always required Washington's permission for export to China due to U.S. concerns that the technology could boost the Asian country's military.
Shares of MiniMax Group Inc. and Knowledge Atlas Technology Joint Stock Co., known as Zhipu, soared in Hong Kong as investors bet on Chinese AI developers gaining access to more powerful Nvidia accelerators. "Zhipu and Minimax seem to be excited on news that Jensen Huang is joining Trump on his trip to China, something that can raise odds of onshore LLMs getting access to better Nvidia chips," said Jian Shi Cortesi, a fund manager at Gam Investment Management in Zurich.
Trump's team granted H200 licenses several months ago in a major reversal of U.S. policy and a huge win for Nvidia's Huang, but Beijing remains a holdup. While China's central government has for years complained about U.S. export controls on advanced technology, Beijing also wants to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors and boost domestic champions like Huawei Technologies Co. Last year, China rejected imports of less-advanced Nvidia AI chips called H20s.
It has been a long road on H200 sales, which emerged as a possibility after China's H20 import block. Nvidia secured Trump's support for H200 exports in December and some initial U.S. licenses in early 2026. Then in March, Huang said that Nvidia had received Washington's permission for shipments to "many customers" in China and was firing up H200 production accordingly. That was also in response to receiving official purchase orders from firms in the Asian country, an indication that Beijing had approved the sales.
