Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump about investments in the United States at the White House on April 30 (local time). AFP=Yonhap News

Nvidia chips cleared for export to China are expected to be shipped to China after undergoing security review in the United States.

Nvidia's H200 chips will undergo a special security review in the United States before being exported to China, the U.S. daily Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 9th (local time), citing government sources.

Since Nvidia's AI chips are almost entirely produced by TSMC in Taiwan, the H200 chips will likely have to be transported from Taiwan to the U.S. and then sent to China after the security review in the U.S.

This complex supply chain is interpreted as a measure taken in consideration of pressure that the export of Nvidia chips to China could harm national security in areas such as the AI hegemony competition between the two countries.

In fact, there are strong concerns about allowing the export of H200 chips to China, with the "Secure and Feasible Export Semiconductor Act" (SAFE Act) being introduced bi-partisanly in the U.S. Senate, which would prohibit the Secretary of Commerce from approving advanced chip exports to China for the next 30 months.

The legal issue of the government receiving 25% of sales if Nvidia chips are exported to China via the U.S. can also be resolved.

There have been arguments that President Donald Trump's plan to have semiconductor companies pay a certain percentage of their exports to China to the U.S. government is unconstitutional, as it imposes taxes on exported products.

However, this issue can be resolved if Nvidia chips are imported into the U.S. from Taiwan first, incurring tariffs or import duties, and then re-exported to China.

However, experts have expressed doubts about whether the security review of the chips themselves will have a practical effect, the WSJ reported.

This is because the core of the security issue is where the chips flow and how they are used.

While the U.S. Congress is concerned that Nvidia's AI chips could aid the Chinese military, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang maintains that China will not use U.S. chips for its own military due to its own security concerns.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News reported on the same day, citing sources, that President Trump's approval of H200 chip exports was based on the assessment that the security risk is low because Chinese company Huawei already offers AI systems with similar performance.

It was confirmed that Huawei's AI platform "Cloud Matrix 384," based on its latest "Ascend" chip, has performance comparable to Nvidia's NVL72, which is based on the latest "Blackwell" architecture.

Sources also stated that Huawei's expected ability to produce millions of Ascend chips next year also influenced the decision to allow exports.

President Trump is reportedly concluded that even if H200 is exported to China, the U.S. can maintain an 18-month technology gap, and China will remain dependent on the U.S. technology ecosystem.

However, Bloomberg reported that the Department of Commerce and Nvidia did not respond to requests for comment.