January 19, 2025
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made a low-key visit to China, as he conveyed the company's commitment to one of its largest markets amid heightened US export restrictions on advanced chips.
While Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia did not disclose the details of Huang's itinerary, video clips and news reports from local media showed the Taiwan-born American entrepreneur meeting clients and employees in Shenzhen and Beijing.
At an annual party on Sunday at Nvidia's office in the Chinese capital, Huang emphasised the company's contribution to the country's technological development.
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About 1.5 million developers in China were using CUDA, Nvidia's proprietary platform for building programs running on graphics processing units, Huang said. The company was also working with more than 3,000 start-ups to "help establish the technology industry here in China", he added.
"Together over the last two decades, we have contributed to the modernisation of one of the greatest markets, the greatest countries in the world, and we're extremely proud to be part of the ecosystem," Huang said.
China is one of Nvidia's major markets. Photo: dpa alt=China is one of Nvidia's major markets. Photo: dpa>
He also touted the low turnover rate of the local team.
Nvidia's China workforce has expanded by over half in recent years to almost 4,000 employees, according to Huang. Its annualised staff attrition rate, at 0.9 per cent compared to 2 per cent worldwide, was the lowest among the company's global operations, he said.
"Pretty much if you join Nvidia, you're going to grow old with me," Huang said. "And I'm very very proud of that."
Huang's latest efforts to boost employee morale in China come as Nvidia is ensnared in the growing tech rivalry between the world's two largest economies. Washington has tightened export controls on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips in the last days of Joe Biden's presidency, while Beijing announced an antitrust investigation into Nvidia last month.
It was unclear whether Huang would meet any Chinese government officials during the trip. "I'm here to celebrate Chinese New Year with my employees, that's all I'm here to do," he told reporters in Shenzhen last week, according to video clips published by Chinese media.
Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
China is Nvidia's largest market by revenue after the US and Singapore, according to the company's latest financial reports. In the three months ended October 27, 2024, Nvidia posted US$5.4 billion in revenue in mainland China and Hong Kong, a 34 per cent increase from the same period a year ago.
The company opposed new measures unveiled by the Biden administration last week that would cap advanced AI chip exports to most countries and completely block sales to China. The move was a "sweeping overreach" that would "squander America's hard-won technological advantage", Nvidia said in a blog post.
The last time Huang visited mainland China was in January 2024. That tour, which included stops at Nvidia's offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, was seen as a "goodwill gesture" to local staff and clients.
Huang also flew to Hong Kong last November to receive an honorary doctorate at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. At the time, he pledged to maintain the company's presence in mainland China in spite of rising geopolitical tensions.
Huang is expected to skip the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, while most American tech executives - including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla chief Elon Musk - are set to attend.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) , the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
