U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that Nvidia’s most powerful Blackwell AI chips will be kept exclusively for American use, shutting out China and other foreign buyers.

During his comments on Air Force One and in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Trump stated that Nvidia’s top-end processors should only be available to American companies, claiming that they are crucial to preserving the country’s technical superiority. 

He emphasized that these chips are too precious to be shared elsewhere, saying, “The most advanced — we will not let anybody else have them other than the United States.”

The declaration suggests that export regulations may be tightened more than U.S. authorities have previously indicated.  At the core of the AI surge is Nvidia, currently the most valuable company in the world, whose Blackwell line powers enormous data-center and research workloads across the globe.  Even while Nvidia continues to sell reduced versions of these CPUs to friendly nations like South Korea, where it just announced a shipment of more than 260,000 units, Trump’s position may prevent China and other countries from purchasing them.

In Washington, the remarks have already sparked strong reactions.  The leader of the House Select Committee on China, Republican Congressman John Moolenaar, said that granting Beijing any access to the technology “would be akin to giving Iran weapons-grade uranium.”  With the U.S. determined to maintain a clear lead in next-generation computing power as competitors from across the world scramble to catch up, analysts believe the move highlights how AI and geopolitics are now closely related.