Nvidia, AMD to pay 15% of their Chinese chip sales revenues to US gov't: Report

US chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay a portion of their Chinese chip sales revenues to the US government, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday.

In exchange for 15% of their sales revenues to the Chinese market, the US government, in an unusual move, will grant export licenses to sell Nvidia's H20 and AMD's MI308 chips in China, according to the FT.

The move followed the controversy concerning the H20 chip exports to China.

In April, Washington restricted Nvidia from selling its H20 chips to China in an escalation of a tech war with Beijing, saying it would be required to have an export license "for the indefinite future" to sell the chips to the country.

However, the Trump administration reversed course last month, pledging to remove the licensing restrictions.

It also came after China's accusation that Nvidia's H20 chips have mature tracking and location, and remote shutdown technologies.

Last week, Nvidia denied the claims, saying its chips have no "backdoors or kill switches."

"NVIDIA GPUs do not and should not have kill switches and backdoors," wrote Nvidia's Chief Security Officer David Reber in a blog post.

However, a Chinese official media agency called Nvidia's H20 chip unsafe on Sunday and advised Chinese consumers to avoid purchasing AI processors made for the Chinese market.

Yuyuan Tantian, a representative of official broadcaster China Central Television, said that the US government was attempting to install "backdoors" in the H20 chip, despite Nvidia's repeated denials.

"As consumers, we certainly have the option not to buy a chip when it is neither advanced, safe, or environmentally friendly," the site stated in a statement.

According to the FT, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang met with US President Donald Trump last week.

In a statement, Nvidia told the Financial Times: "We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets."

Trump threatened to impose up to 100% tariffs last week on semiconductor and chip exports, except for the companies that manufacture in the US.