I called some CEOs yesterday to get their thoughts on Nvidia and AMD’s deal to give the U.S. government a 15% cut of AI chip sales to China to secure export licenses. Most were surprisingly sanguine about the unusual arrangement.

Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of their revenues from semiconductor sales to China in exchange for export licenses, an unprecedented quid pro quo arrangement aimed at solidifying America’s AI business dominance while maintaining trade ties with China.

The global AI chip race narrative used to be about U.S. national security, but apparently now it's about tariffs: Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of the revenue they make from sales of high-end AI chips to China in exchange for licenses to sell those chips in the country,