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Nvidia chief Jensen Huang has condemned US export controls designed to limit China’s access to artificial intelligence chips as “a failure” that spurred Chinese rivals to accelerate development of their own products.

In strongly worded criticisms of chip policies pursued by successive US administrations, the chief executive of the world’s leading AI chipmaker also criticised Washington’s decision to ban an Nvidia chip designed specifically for the Chinese market.

He told a news conference at the Computex tech show in Taipei on Wednesday that export controls had turbocharged Chinese rivals, led by tech giant Huawei, to build competitive AI hardware. 

“Four years ago, Nvidia had 95 per cent market share in China. Today, it is only 50 per cent,” he said. “The rest is Chinese technology. They have a lot of local technology they would use if they didn’t have Nvidia.”

Huang added: “Chinese AI researchers will use their own chips. They will use the second best. Local companies are very determined and export controls gave them the spirit and government support accelerated their development. Our competition is intense in China.”

The Trump administration in April banned Nvidia from selling the H20, its watered-down AI chip tailored to align with former export controls, prompting a $5.5bn writedown by the company. Huang reiterated that Nvidia had no current plans to roll out another “Hopper” chip for the China market, saying the company had already “degraded the chip so severely”. 

This is a developing story

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday unveiled new details on his plan for a missile defence system known as “Golden Dome”, which is estimated to cost a total of some $175 billion. The “Golden Dome” will be the first weapon the US puts in space, and it should be operational in about three years, by the end of his time in office, the President said.

Trump said his team has officially finalised the architecture of the futuristic defence system that he announced just days after returning to the White House in January. At the time, the Republican said the system would be aimed at countering “next-generation” aerial threats to the US, including ballistic and cruise missiles.

“In the campaign, I promised the American people I would build a cutting-edge missile defence shield…Today, I am pleased to announce we have officially selected architecture for this state-of-the-art system,” Trump said at the White House.

What Is The Golden Dome System?

The Golden Dome will be a ground- and space-based missile shield system that will detect, track and stop missiles at multiple stages of flight, potentially destroying them before takeoff or intercepting them in mid-air. Calling the new system “very important for the success and even survival” of the United States, Trump said that once fully constructed, it will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even if they are launched from space. 

Golden Dome has more expansive goals, with Trump saying it “will deploy next-generation technologies across the land, sea and space, including space-based sensors and interceptors.”

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, speaking alongside Trump, said the design for the Golden Dome will integrate with existing ground-based defence capabilities and is aimed at protecting “the homeland from cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, drones, whether they’re conventional or nuclear.”

How Much Will It Cost?

The system will cost over $500 billion, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. However, Trump has, so far, announced $25 billion in initial funding for the plan, which he said could eventually cost a total of some $175 billion. 

When Will It Be Completed?

Trump said the system will be operational in about three years, by the end of his time in office. However, Forbes reported that the cost of the project will be absorbed over 20 years. 

Who Will Lead The Project?

Trump said US Space Force General Michael Guetlein will lead the effort.  A four-star general, Guetlein had a 30-year career in the Air Force before he joined the Space Force in 2021. He reportedly specialises in missile defence and space systems.

Countries Covered Under the Golden Globe

The System is meant to protect the United States from all kinds of missile or drone attacks, but Trump said that Canada has expressed interest in being part of it as “they want to have protection also.”

Idea Behind The Golden Globe

The plan’s Golden Dome name stems from Israel’s Iron Dome air defence system that has intercepted thousands of short-range rockets and other projectiles since it went into operation in 2011. The United States faces various missile threats from adversaries, but they differ significantly from the short-range weapons that Israel’s Iron Dome is designed to counter.

The 2022 Missile Defence Review pointed to growing threats from Russia and China.

Who Opposes The Plan?

Russia and China earlier this month slammed the Golden Dome concept as “deeply destabilising,” saying it risked turning space into a “battlefield.”

It “explicitly provides for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space,” said a statement published by the Kremlin after talks between the two sides.

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Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world

To grasp a party’s true values, study its budget. By that test, Donald Trump’s Republicans loathe science, medical research, victims of overseas disasters, food stamps, education for all age groups, healthcare for the poor and clean energy. Each are severely cut. On the other hand, they love the Pentagon, border security, the rich and allegedly those for whom the rich leave tips. They have no desire to reduce America’s ballooning deficit. What Trump wants enacted is the most anti-blue collar budget in memory. Call it Hunger Games 2025. It is an odd way of repaying their voters.

Some Republicans, like Josh Hawley, the rightwing Missouri senator, warn that this budget could “end any chance of us becoming a working-class party”. Steve Bannon, Maga’s original conceptualiser, says the Medicaid cuts will harm Trump’s base. “Maga’s on Medicaid because there’s not great jobs in this country,” says Bannon. The plutocracy is still running Capitol Hill, he adds. It goes against what Trump promised his base — a balanced budget that did not touch entitlements. Indeed, these were the only two fiscal vows he made during the campaign.

In practice, Republicans in the lower chamber have written a plutocratic blueprint. Their bill was temporarily defeated last Friday by a handful of conservative defectors who complained the draft did not cut spending on the poor enough. They wanted to slash Medicare further and end all clean energy incentives. But what they voted against contains most of their priorities. In addition to the renewed Trump tax cuts, the bill would raise the zero inheritance tax threshold to $30mn for a couple. It would also scrap the tax on gun silencers. These are not cuddly people. 

On the surface, it looks as if Elon Musk is out, while Bannon is still around. But rumours of a divorce between Trump and Musk are exaggerated. More likely is that they are taking a marital break. And to judge by the results so far, Musk’s libertarian fiscal instincts are prevailing over Bannon’s. 

The two agree on “deconstructing the administrative state”, Bannon’s original phrase that Musk operationalised with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency. But Musk is more ruthless in his libertarianism than Bannon is in his economic populism. Musk thinks most federal payouts are fraudulent and that he and other corporate titans are victims of the deep state. That is in spite of the $38bn his companies have received in subsidies and federal contracts. Trump’s budget suits Musk’s tastes. 

Bannon’s blue-collar agenda, on the other hand, takes rhetorical centre stage with Trump but a back seat when it comes to policy. Bannon and a handful of Maga Republicans are opposed to Trump’s tax cuts for the top brackets. He wants a 40 per cent tax on the highest earners. He also wants to regulate Musk and the other big AI titans. “A nail salon in Washington DC has more regulations than these four guys running with artificial intelligence,” Bannon says. But no AI regulation is in sight.

To be fair, some of Bannon’s agenda is going ahead. Trump’s prosecutors are squeezing Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and attempting to break up Alphabet. But tough settlements could conclude in a Trump shakedown rather than the Silicon Valley trustbusting Bannon wants. The vice-president, JD Vance, appears to side with the anti-monopolists yet is also a protégé of Peter Thiel, who champions a bizarre form of corporate monarchism. My bet is that any adverse ruling against Google or Meta would be a transaction opportunity for Trump. He has no consistent view on competition policy. 

On America’s core economic problems — inequality and the middle-class squeeze — Bannon talks a convincing game. But there are two glitches. The first is that he is a fan of cutting back the Internal Revenue Service, which collects taxes. Few things please Trump’s big donors more than the budget item that slashes IRS funding. Second, Bannon’s call for Trump to suspend habeas corpus so that at least 10mn illegal immigrants can summarily be deported seems likelier to hit home than his pro-middle class economics. Trump militantly agrees with Bannon’s dark side. He pays lip service to the light.  

Of course, whatever budget is passed by the House of Representatives may be amended in the Senate. But any changes would probably be marginal. People who share Musk’s interests are feeding those of needy Americans into the proverbial woodchipper. Could that potentially split Maga? By the end of Trump’s second hundred days, we will find out how much populist economics matter to Bannon and co. 

edward.luce@ft.com