Nvidia unveils $5.5B charge to comply with Trump rule

Nvidia revealed Tuesday the Trump administration's tighter export controls on computer chips will cost the company $5.5 billion.

In a filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nvidia said it will take a $5.5 billion charge for the exporting of its H20 graphics processing units to China. Exports of a similar bandwidth are also subject to the same licensing requirements, according to the filing.

The licensing requirements are related to the risk that Nvidia's products would be "used in or diverted to" a supercomputer in China, the company wrote.

Shares of the tech company dropped by 7 percent Wednesday amid the news. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a competitor chipmaker, dropped about 6 percent after it revealed in a separate filing that export controls could result in a charge of about $800 million in "inventory, purchase commitments and related reserve," The Associated Press reported.

The Commerce Department confirmed to the AP on Wednesday it rolled out new export licensing requirements for Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 chips, as well as "their equivalents."

The agency said it is "committed to acting on the President's directive to safeguard our national and economic security," according to the AP. 

Earlier this week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to push for restrictions on exports of the H20 chip and others to China. She argued Nvidia's continued export of the chip will work against President Trump's goal of bringing manufacturing to the United States.

While the Biden administration placed a series of export controls on chips to China, Warren pointed out that the previous White House left H20 and other chips like it "unrestricted."

The filing was sent just one day after Nvidia announced it would manufacture up to $500 billion worth of artificial intelligence (AI) chips and supercomputers entirely in the United States over the next four years.

The AI chipmaker said it commissioned more than a million square feet to build Nvidia Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.

This comes amid Trump's broader trade war and efforts to push companies to move their manufacturing and assembly processes to the United States.

Nvidia's chips are often made in Taiwan while it relies on China as a major market for its products. Trump has threatened a 32 percent tariff on products and goods from Taiwan while slapping China with a 145 percent tariff.