Nvidia CEO: U.S. chipmakers at least a decade away from China supply chain independence
Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, arrives for the Inaugural AI Insight Forum in Russell Building on Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, September 13, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
U.S. chipmakers are at least a decade away from “supply chain independence” from China, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.
“We should absolutely go down the journey of it,” Huang said in an appearance at the New York Times’ DealBook Conference, referring to the Biden administration’s effort to delink China from U.S. chip supply. “But total independence of supply chain is not a real practical thing for a decade or two.”
Asked whether Nvidia should continue to do business with China, Huang said, “We’re a company that was built for business and so we try to do business with everybody we can. On the other hand, our national security matters and our national competitiveness matters.”
Nvidia warned in its third-quarter earnings on Nov. 21 that it expects a negative impact from U.S. export controls during the fourth quarter
Nvidia has been subject to increasingly tighter export controls, limiting its ability to send its most high-powered GPUs used for artificial intelligence to China. “The most critical technology that we build, the leading edge of it is not made available to China,” Huang told Sorkin.
But Huang also noted that China can find a way to obtain that technology or “inspire” domestic chipmakers. Nvidia is still a decade ahead of those companies, Huang said in specific reference to sanctioned Chinese manufacturer Huawei.
The Biden administration has prioritized limiting China’s access to financial and intellectual resources. Beyond the export of advanced chips, the U.S. government has also imposed restrictions on which industries U.S. venture firms can invest in within China.
Huang also opined on the rapid progression of AI development. Nvidia has played a key role in growing the industry, through its increasingly powerful GPUs. Huang said that AI which equals human intellect will be achieved within five years.
Firefly’s CEO Jason Kim reacts during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, U.S., August 7, 2025.
Jeenah Moon | Reuters
Last week’s liftoff also coincided with President Donald Trump‘s “space superiority” executive order, signed on Friday, that aims to create a permanent U.S. base on the moon.
Investors have also gained more clarity on the future of NASA following a whirlwind drama since Trump won the election.
Last week, the Senate confirmed Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator more than a year after he was first nominated to the position.
Trump withdrew the nomination from the Elon Musk ally earlier this year amid a public fallout, but renominated Isaacman in November.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was tapped to temporarily run the space agency in the interim.
Google parent Alphabet on Monday announced it will acquire Intersect, a data center and energy infrastructure company, for $4.75 billion in cash in addition to the assumption of debt.
Alphabet said Intersect’s operations will remain independent, but that the acquisition will help bring more data center and generation capacity online faster.
In recent years, Google has been embroiled in a fierce competition with artificial intelligence rivals, namely OpenAI, which kick-started the generative AI boom with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. OpenAI has made more than $1.4 trillion of infrastructure commitments to build out the data centers it needs to meet growing demand for its technology.
With its acquisition of Intersect, Google is looking to keep up.
“Intersect will help us expand capacity, operate more nimbly in building new power generation in lockstep with new data center load, and reimagine energy solutions to drive US innovation and leadership,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, said in a statement.
Google already had a minority stake in Intersect from a funding round that was announced last December. In a release at the time, Intersect said its strategic partnership with Google and TPG Rise Climate aimed to develop gigawatts of data center capacity across the U.S., including a $20 billion investment in renewable power infrastructure by the end of the decade.
Alphabet said Monday that Intersect will work closely with Google’s technical infrastructure team, including on the companies’ co-located power site and data center in Haskell County, Texas. Google previously announced a $40 billion investment in Texas through 2027, which includes new data center campuses in the state’s Haskell and Armstrong counties.
Intersect’s operating and in-development assets in California and its existing operating assets in Texas are not part of the acquisition, Alphabet said. Intersect’s existing investors including TPG Rise Climate, Climate Adaptive Infrastructure and Greenbelt Capital Partners will support those assets, and they will continue to operate as an independent company.
Alphabet’s acquisition of Intersect is expected to close in the first half of 2026, but it is still subject to customary closing conditions.
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