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Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaks with reporters at a reception for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering in London on November 5. / Source: Reuters-Yonhap

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicted that China will surpass the United States in the global race for artificial intelligence, criticizing Washington’s growing restrictions on AI-related exports. His remarks were reported by the Financial Times on November 5 following his appearance at the “Future of AI Summit” held in London.

Huang pointed to the increasingly tight AI regulations in the U.S., saying, “Cynicism is holding us back. We need optimism.”

Comparing China’s environment to that of the U.S., he noted that electricity there is “practically free,” explaining that Chinese AI companies benefit from government energy subsidies, allowing them to run domestically produced AI chips at lower costs.

Although Nvidia’s high-performance AI chips are widely regarded as superior to Chinese products such as those developed by Huawei in terms of computing speed and energy efficiency, Beijing’s generous subsidies could offset that advantage by reducing local companies’ operating costs.

Huang has long argued that America’s success in AI depends on maintaining global reliance on its semiconductor technology through exports. “Attracting engineers from around the world is essential for victory,” he wrote in a statement posted on social media after the summit.

He made similar remarks during Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) on October 28, stressing that enabling developers worldwide—including those in China—to use Nvidia’s systems is key to ensuring U.S. leadership, and that entering the Chinese market remains vital.

U.S. President Donald Trump, however, decided on October 30 to maintain restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s advanced “Blackwell” AI chips to China following his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.