Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Friday showered praise on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. on a visit to Taiwan, saying that anybody looking to take a stake in the company would be “very smart.”

This comes at a time when the U.S. administration has signaled interest in acquiring stakes in tech companies, especially those in receipt of funding under the U.S. CHIPS Act.

Huang, who said the main purpose of his trip to Taiwan was to thank TSMC for their work on Nvidia’s Rubin, its next-generation AI chip platform, made the remarks in response to a query on Washington looking to take a stake in TSMC. 

“Well, first of all, I think TSMC is one of the greatest companies in the history of humanity, and anybody who wants to buy TSMC stock is a very smart person,” he said. 

Huang said TSMC was making six new products for Nvidia, including a new central processing unit, a hardware component used for computation, and a new general processing unit, used for advanced computation, especially AI.

Earlier this week, Reuters had reported that U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was looking at equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron, TSMC and Samsung. 

The 2022 CHIPS Act, passed with bipartisan support under the Joe Biden administration, has seen grants and loans awarded to chipmakers expanding production in the U.S. as part of efforts by Washington to revitalize U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing. TSMC had been promised $6.6 billion under the act to help build its three cutting-edge chip fabrication plants in Arizona.

Lutnick confirmed in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday that the government was in talks to take a 10% equity stake in troubled semiconductor company Intel, and said the administration might consider stakes in other firms as well.

A report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, however, said the government had no plans to seek shares in semiconductor firms that were increasing their U.S. investments, citing a government official. TSMC, in March, announced an expansion of its Investment in the United States to $165 billion.

Separately, Huang said that Nvidia was eager to begin work on “NVIDIA Constellation” — a recently announced new Taiwan office for the company to house its growing Taiwan workforce.

Huang said the company was still working with the local government to resolve some issues to start its construction. 

“We have many, many employees here in Taiwan, and we’re growing here in Taiwan because our supply chain is so busy here.” 

“We’re working with chip companies, system vendors and system makers all over Taiwan, and everybody is working so hard for us and so we need a lot of engineers to work alongside them,” he added.

Shares in TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, have gained 6.5% so far this year.

Separately, news reports on Friday said Nvidia had asked some of its component suppliers to stop production related to its made-for-China H20 general processing units, after China raised security concerns over the chips. 

Last month, Nvidia said it expected to receive an export license for its H20 chips, which had been effectively banned in April. However, Beijing has reportedly placed a freeze on local company’s ability to buy them.

According to Reuters, one of the companies told to pause their work in relation to the H20 chips was Taiwan’s Foxconn — also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry. Foxconn did not respond to an inquiry from CNBC on the matter.

Huang on Friday said that the company had responded to Beijing’s concerns regarding its H20s and was hoping that the issue would be resolved.

India and Russia agreed Thursday to expand bilateral trade ties, signaling that U.S. tariff pressure on New Delhi over Russian oil purchases is unlikely to derail their partnership.

India currently faces additional tariffs of up to 50% on goods shipped to the U.S., after the Trump administration escalated tariff threats in response to its substantial imports of Russian energy.

The India-Russia relations had been among the “steadiest of the major relationships in the world after the Second World War,” Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said at a joint press conference in Moscow.

Both countries vowed to boost bilateral trade, including increasing India’s exports of pharmaceuticals, agriculture and textiles to Russia to help reduce the current imbalance, Jaishankar said.

Bilateral trade between New Delhi and Moscow reached a record $68.7 billion for the year ended March 2025, with India’s increased oil imports contributing to a $59 billion deficit.

Other plans include sending Indian workers with skills in IT, construction and engineering to help Russia address its labor shortages, Jaishankar added.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said cooperation in the hydrocarbon sector and Russian oil shipments to the Indian market are “making wide strides.” Both sides remain committed to implementing joint energy production projects in the Russian Far East and the Russian Arctic shelf, among other sites, he said.

“This strategic partnership … contributes to regional security and stability, which is undeniably important considering the challenging international circumstances that we are operating under,” Lavrov added.

Western governments have imposed sanctions on Moscow, arguing India’s increased imports helped bankroll Moscow’s war in Ukraine. New Delhi has pushed back, saying the U.S. administration requested the purchases to keep the markets calm, while pointing to the U.S. and European Union’s continued trade with Russia.

Russian embassy officials in New Delhi reportedly said Wednesday that oil shipments to India will continue despite U.S. pressure, adding that Moscow hoped a trilateral meeting with India and China would take place soon.

“Despite the political situation, we can predict that the same level of oil import [by India],” Roman Babushkin, the charge d’affaires at the Russian embassy in India, told a press briefing.

“Russia has been a close strategic partner of India since the 1970s and the Trump administration’s tariff threats are not going to change that,” said Daniel Balazs, a research fellow at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“On the contrary, it might even act as a catalyst,” Balazs added, prompting New Delhi to agree to a trilateral meeting that Moscow sought to broker with China.

India was the second-largest buyer of Russian oil, importing 1.6 million barrels per day in the first half of this year, up from 50,000 bpd in 2020, though still trailing China’s 2 million bpd imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Washington has not placed secondary tariffs on China for its Russian oil purchases. When asked about China’s role in Russian oil purchases, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that Beijing’s imports were considered to be less egregious because it had already been a major buyer even before Russia invaded Ukraine.

By contrast, Washington has escalated criticism of India in recent days, accusing the nation of profiteering from cheap Russian crude and threatening higher tariffs on Indian goods.

Trump’s true agenda appears to have little to do with Washington’s stated goal of curbing Moscow’s oil revenues, but extracting leverage from these trading partners, according to several geopolitical experts. These include securing a trade deal with New Delhi while pushing Putin for a ceasefire pact in Ukraine.

Last week, Trump rolled out a red carpet to greet Putin on his first visit to the U.S. in about a decade, sharing a ride with him in the presidential limousine to the venue. The meeting was held in Alaska, which was once a part of Russia.

The meeting did not appear to have produced meaningful steps toward a ceasefire in Ukraine and the Russian government has reiterated its opposition to any short-term ceasefire deal with Ukraine.

Speaking at the joint news briefing Thursday, Lavrov said he had briefed Indian officials on those talks.

“India’s approach continues to emphasize dialogue and diplomacy as essential to resolving differences,” Jaishankar said.