- The US imposed sweeping export controls on China around high-end chips in 2022.
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said China revenue-percentage was double what it is now pre-export controls.
- The CEO told CNBC "it's hard to tell" if export controls are effective regarding innovation.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is unsure if export controls against China are effective national security measures for the US amid the artificial intelligence race. However, they've certainly hurt the chipmaker's business abroad.
"It's hard to tell whether export control is effective," Huang said in a CNBC interview on Wednesday. The CEO was responding to a question about whether the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek and its latest model showed there are workarounds against the US-imposed sanctions on semiconductors.
"Our percentage revenues in China before export controls was twice as high as it is now," the CEO said, adding that competition from China remains stiff with companies like Huawei and that software will continue to innovate.
"I think that ultimately, software finds a way. Maybe that's the easiest way of thinking about it," he said. "Whether you're developing software for a supercomputer, or software for a personal computer, or software for a phone, or software for a game console — you ultimately make that software work on whatever system that you're targeting and you create great software."
Since the US implemented export controls on semiconductors in 2022 — and tightened those restrictions in 2023 — Nvidia's revenue from China has taken a significant hit.
For the fiscal year ending in January 2023, Nvidia's China business made up 21% of the company's total revenue. For the same fiscal year ending in January 2025, revenue from China made up about 13% of Nvidia's overall revenue.
An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment.
Despite the export restrictions and a brief shock to the chipmaker's stock after DeepSeek unveiled its R1 reasoning model, Nvidia reported another strong quarter on Wednesday, growing total revenue to $39.3 billion — 78% year-over-year increase from $22.1 billion.
Nvidia saw a short sell-off following the DeepSeek release in January. In a single day, it erased nearly $600 billion of its market cap, putting the company's valuation at about $2.4 trillion.
The company has since recovered its market-cap loss, currently standing at a $3.22 trillion valuation.
