By Stephen Nellis
WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) – The top Democrat on a U.S. House of Representatives committee focused on China on Monday signaled he is open to the sale of the older Nvidia generation of Hopper chips to China, a change from his predecessor’s position.
Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, took over as the ranking member on the Select Committee on China earlier this year. The Republican chair of the committee has criticized President Donald Trump’s decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chip to China, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Illinois Democrat who preceded Khanna, co-sponsored a bill last year that would have blocked the sales.
Speaking to reporters after his first hearing with the committee, Khanna stopped short of endorsing Trump’s H200 move but said he is open to sales of older chips to China. The H200 was released in 2024 and is part of Nvidia’s Hopper generation of chips, which preceded its current Blackwell generation and its forthcoming Rubin chips due later this year.
“We certainly shouldn’t be sending them Rubins. We shouldn’t be sending them Blackwells,” Khanna said. “But after we have a two-year, three-year advantage, then I’m fine to make sure that our chips are being used in refrigerators and dishwashers and that that is something that we’re selling.”
In a statement, John Moolenaar, the Michigan Republican who chairs the committee, said, “Chinese AI companies are training their models on U.S. chips then giving these models to the PLA,” using the initials of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army. “The sale of advanced chips, including Hoppers, into China will be exploited by the PLA through China’s civil-military fusion,” he said.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Despite some shared views with the Trump administration on Nvidia chip sales to China, Khanna took issue with its Taiwan policy. This is a departure for a committee that had previously stood out for bipartisanship in an otherwise polarized political climate in Washington.
“What we saw in the hearing is a shift of Democrats. It’s not just our members criticizing the China Communist Party. It’s our members criticizing the Trump administration’s policies,” Khanna told reporters. “Trump’s policies have not been clear, they have not been consistent, and they are undermining the security of Taiwan.”
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in Washington, D.C.; editing by Diane Craft, Rod Nickel)
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