NVIDIA will continue its research operations in Shanghai despite concern expressed by the Senate Banking Committee in a Wednesday letter, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang confirmed on Thursday.
Speaking during a press conference in Berkeley, California on Thursday, Huang announced plans to bring an NVIDIA-powered supercomputer to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory alongside Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Dell Senior Vice President Paul Perez.
Huang addressed the letter issued to him from the Senate Banking Committee Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., regarding the national security concerns of NVIDIA’s planned R&D facility based in Shanghai. Both senators wrote that they were worried about the safety of NVIDIA’s intellectual property and understanding of customer needs while working within China.
“NVIDIA’s innovations in accelerated computing have powered America’s global leadership at the frontier of artificial intelligence (AI), and NVIDIA dominates globally in the sale of chips for AI data centers,” the letter said. “Given this leading position as an American company, NVIDIA has a responsibility to consider the significant national security implications of the use and misuse of its products.”
Huang told reporters at the Thursday press conference that NVIDIA’s Shanghai facility has existed for over a decade, and that the company will continue operations there.
“We’ve been in China for 30 years,” he said. “The Shanghai site has been there for a decade and a half.”
Huang’s comments follow NVIDIA and other major corporations’ participation in the Trump administration’s bid to bring a robust manufacturing sector back to the U.S., having recently announced its ongoing work to scale and construct new U.S.-based manufacturing facilities that will focus on creating AI input technologies.
Other tech company executives have commented on the importance of keeping the technology stack U.S.-made. Testifying during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing in May, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that uniting the AI stack’s components as stemming from a trusted supply chain will be critical to model security and safety.
Despite the continued activity in Shanghai, Huang said he is “delighted” that President Donald Trump’s efforts to onshore manufacturing in the U.S.
“We’re still going to rely, obviously, on supply chains all over the world,” he said. “AI is such a large growth industry that we’re going to need the supply chain of just about partners everywhere. But nonetheless, this is going to be something that we’re going to be able to build in the United States using our best technology, making it all here in the United States, and it’s going to be wonderful for a new industry.”
