Trump’s China visit: Why Nvidia's Jensen Huang’s surprise Beijing trip is drawing global attention

Jensen Huang, co-founder of Nvidia, joined US President Donald Trump on his China visit as a late addition, bringing artificial intelligence and technology into focus ahead of a crucial summit in Beijing.

The list of attendees until Tuesday had not included Huang, whose company makes the chips at the heart of the AI boom and has been pushing for greater leeway in a market he’s identified as a $50 billion opportunity.

The Nvidia chief executive officer was spotted on the tarmac boarding the presidential plane and Trump later confirmed his attendance in a social media post, saying it was an honor to have Huang and other business leaders as part of the US delegation.

“I will be asking President Xi, a Leader of extraordinary distinction, to ‘open up’ China so that these brilliant people can work their magic, and help bring the People’s Republic to an even higher level!” Trump said in the post. “In fact, I promise, that when we are together, which will be in a matter of hours, I will make that my very first request.”

What was the confusion around Huang joining the trip?

White House spokesman Steven Cheung, asked about why Nvidia’s Huang was now joining Trump’s trip, said Huang’s schedule changed and “it just happened to work out.” Trump called Huang this morning and asked him to come, and the Nvidia leader flew to Anchorage to meet Air Force One on its planned layover, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cheung said he wasn’t aware of Trump calling Huang before the schedule change.

“Jensen is attending the summit at the invitation of President Trump to support America and the administration’s goals,” Nvidia said in a statement.

The Nvidia concern - will Trump raise with Xi?

It’s unclear whether Trump will raise with Xi any concerns that relate specifically to Nvidia, whose shares extended gains to more than 3% in after-hours Blue Ocean trading.

The big-ticket item would be seeking Beijing’s approval for Chinese customers to buy Nvidia’s advanced H200 AI chips. Those products, which are used to train and run models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, have always required Washington’s permission for export to China due to US concerns that the technology could boost the Asian country’s military.

Who else are accompanying Trump?

Huang is among several US business leaders including Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook and Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk on Trump’s first overseas trip since waging war in the Middle East — a 36-hour pow-wow with Xi Jinping that’s expected to encompass the war, tariffs and the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

Trump will also be joined by Boeing Co.’s Kelly Ortberg and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s David Solomon, among others.