Jensen Huang Meets With Lutnick in Washington Amid Probe Into Alleged Blackwell Export Violations to China

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang visited Washington, D.C., this week and held successive meetings with administration and congressional officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, U.S. media outlet Axios reported on the 28th (local time).

Citing sources, the outlet reported that Huang, currently visiting Washington, D.C., met with Secretary Lutnick that day.

Huang is also reported to have met with lawmakers from both the Republican and Democratic parties, including Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

An NVIDIA spokesperson stated that Huang is "meeting with bipartisan leadership to discuss NVIDIA's efforts to strengthen the U.S. supply chain through $500 billion in domestic tech production over the next four years, as well as U.S. leadership in AI, including open source."

The specific topics discussed between Huang and Secretary Lutnick on that day have not been disclosed.

However, as U.S. authorities are investigating potential regulatory violations regarding the export of NVIDIA's advanced Blackwell AI chips to China, the possibility has been raised that the related issues were discussed.

Previously, a spokesperson for the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) told Axios that the agency is investigating potential violations concerning the export of NVIDIA Blackwell AI chips to China.

In addition, the Trump administration's ongoing policy for government pre-deployment reviews of advanced AI models and strategies regarding open-source AI concerning China may also have been discussed.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently mentioned the possibility of additional regulations regarding intellectual property (IP) infringement issues that have arisen in the process of Chinese companies utilizing open-source AI.

Secretary Bessent stated via social media platform X, "We support open-source AI and the innovation it enables," while adding, "However, open-source does not mean U.S. intellectual property can be used at will."

He warned that if Chinese companies carry out covert, large-scale "distillation" attacks that amount to intellectual property theft, designation for sanctions could be considered.

"Distillation" is a technique where responses from high-performing AI models are collected in large quantities and used as training data to enhance the performance of a company's own AI model.

The U.S. government believes that certain Chinese companies are infringing on the intellectual property of U.S. AI firms through this method.

(Photo: Getty Images)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.