Nvidia and AMD Agree to Hand the Government 15% of Their China Chip Sales for Export Licenses

The White House confirmed on August 11, 2025 an arrangement under which Nvidia would pay the U.S. government 15% of its revenue from selling H20 artificial-intelligence chips to China, and AMD would pay 15% of revenue from MI308 sales, in exchange for export licenses. The arrangement followed the administration's reversal of an earlier ban on H20 sales to China. Trump said that "if I'm going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something." Neither company publicly confirmed the full terms, and the administration had not said how the proceeds would be allocated.

Export licenses are ordinarily granted or denied on national-security grounds, not sold. Conditioning a license on a revenue share puts a price on access to a restricted market and invites the inference that security determinations are negotiable. Christopher Padilla, a former Commerce Department official, called the arrangement "astonishing" and said that "if companies can buy their way past export controls imposed to protect US national security, we are in very dangerous waters."

The arrangement was reported by The Washington Post on August 10 and confirmed by the White House the next day. No implementing regulation or stated statutory authority for the revenue share was published in August 2025.