The U.S. government has demanded that Nvidia and AMD pay 15% of their revenue from sales of consumer AI-specific chips to the government, as reported by the Financial Times on the 10th.
The U.S. government proposed that instead of easing restrictions on the export of consumer AI chips, Nvidia and AMD need to pay 15% of the revenue from their consumer sales to the U.S. government. Nvidia must pay 15% of the revenue from sales of its China-exclusive AI chip H20, while AMD owes 15% of the revenue from the MI308 sales to the government.
Currently, specific plans for how the U.S. government will use this revenue have not been disclosed.
At the beginning of the year, former President Trump banned sales of AI chips to the public, but after a meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, the public sanctions were lifted and changed to the imposition of a 15% tax.
The U.S. government's demand is unprecedented, and FT noted that "U.S. corporations have never agreed to pay part of their revenue to the government in order to obtain export permits." Export experts evaluated that it is essentially unprecedented for U.S. corporations to pay taxes to the government.
However, FT reported that this aligns with the pattern of the Trump administration. Trump has been pressuring domestic corporations, such as Apple, to invest in the U.S. to create jobs.