US chip makers NVIDIA and AMD had to make an important and perhaps forced decision. According to the Financial Times, the companies have agreed to hand over 15% of their revenue from chip sales to China to the US government. Apparently, they did so reluctantly, seeing no other way out.

This deal is part of an arrangement with the administration of US President Donald Trump. It is required to obtain export licenses for China, which were issued last week. Under the agreement, Nvidia will contribute 15% of its revenue from sales of H20 chips in China, whereas AMD will share the same percentage from its MI308 chip revenue.

Notably, Trump’s administration began issuing licenses allowing Nvidia and AMD to resume sales of certain chips designed for China. Previously, both companies were prohibited from selling their products in the country amid a fierce trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

However, the progress in US–China relations has led to a thaw in trade. As a result, Trump’s administration authorized the resumption of certain chip sales to China. Nonetheless, Nvidia and AMD are still banned from selling their cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chips to the Chinese market.

Currently, Nvidia’s H20 chips are in high demand in China. They are used by many major AI developers, including Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and DeepSeek.