Nvidia owes it to shareholders to sell to its most capable customers

Rubber was oil before oil. As Edmund Morris wrote in his biography of Thomas Edison, rubber was “a raw material necessary enough to provoke armed conflict.” How things change.

Think of a recent one Wall Street Journal pension about Nvidia’s H200 chips and that asked why President Trump would “give away one of America’s major technological advantages to a rival and its main economic competitor?” The same editorial page that has so long enlightened readers on the genius of open trade lanes scorns Trump’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell its chips in China. The editorial didn’t sound like much Wall Street Journal.

First, it implies that editors know what market inputs will be desirable in the future. Watch the rubber while thinking about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s earlier remark that failure to continuously evolve means Nvidia will “come out of commodity operation.” Translation, the same Nvidia chips of the magazine The editors want to limit the sale of will soon be yesterday’s news, regardless of Nvidia’s customer mix.

Then the editors at Newspaper He would never recommend that Trump and his administration demand that Nvidia stop selling its chips altogether, but what is easily forgotten is that neither Nvidia, nor China, nor the US can control the final destination of any good that is sold. Which answers to of the magazine worry about Nvidia allegedly “giving away” its technology to rivals. Technological revelations are a result of sales. As longtime Nvidia employee Dwight Diercks once said, “Everybody takes a look at their competitors’ hardware and how it works. It’s not even black ops. We just do it.”

After that, if you produce, you are by definition doing business with the entire world regardless of the wishes of the legislators. That’s why trade between US and German producers continued through Scandinavian countries during World War I despite the US embargo on Germany, why US consumption of “Arab oil” continued unabated despite the embargo in 1973, and why Nvidia chips will continue to find their way to China and be analyzed by China-based presidents in relation to with out-of-control presidents and competitors. AI.

THE Newspaper argues that Nvidia’s sales to China mean “there’s less ‘calculation,’ as techies say, for American companies, especially startups.” By that measure, there will be fewer American “hits” if famous songwriters Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon aren’t forced to pitch their songs to hungry US musicians. But just as songwriters need to think hard about who will best represent their work, so too must innovative businesses with shareholders to choose their clients wisely.

Translation, the “win” is to the best work, not the country of origin of the work. THE of the magazine Editors know why: when trading lanes are open, it’s like everything is made locally.

It’s a reminder that what’s good for Nvidia is great for the world. In other words, is China being hurt because Cupertino, California-based Apple sells a fifth of its iPhones in China? Does the ubiquity of McDonald’s and Starbucks outlets in China signal dominance by Chicago and Seattle or by Americana-loving Chinese customers?

No words will be lost in answering the above questions. Precisely because China is so competitive in AI, the US and the world will be much better off the more the best US and Chinese businesses work together. That trade makes the world a safer place just adds to the many reasons Nvidia should be free to sell to China, while also raising more perplexing questions about why an editorial page long associated with “Free People, Free Markets” disagrees.