At a ceremony in Norrköping this weekend, Nvidia’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Jensen Huang, gave high praise to U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiatives aimed at revitalising American manufacturing, describing them as “visionary” and critical to the future of technology. While accepting an honorary doctorate from Linköping University, Huang underscored the importance of on-shoring critical supply chains and building domestic production capacity. His remarks came as Nvidia announced a new partnership with Swedish industry leaders to deploy its latest artificial-intelligence data-center platform in Scandinavia, part of a broader push to diversify global operations in the wake of shifting U.S. trade policy.

A Swedish Partnership Inaugurates Global AI Expansion

Nvidia revealed on Saturday that it will supply its cutting-edge AI data-center infrastructure to a consortium of Swedish firms, including telecom equipment giant Ericsson and pharmaceutical leader AstraZeneca. The collaboration aims to establish a European node for training and running large-scale neural networks tailored for applications ranging from 5G network optimization to accelerated drug discovery. Ericsson will integrate Nvidia’s processors into its next generation of edge-computing hardware, while AstraZeneca will leverage the platform to speed up molecular modeling and genomic analysis.

Huang emphasized that partnerships like this underscore the imperative of robust, resilient supply chains. “In order to advance AI, you need not just design talent but also the industrial base to manufacture chips at scale,” he explained. “The policies President Trump has championed are helping to rebuild that base in the United States, so American companies can continue to lead.” The Swedish agreement follows similar deals that Nvidia struck in recent weeks with technology groups in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Those partnerships accelerated after Washington eased export controls on advanced AI chips—reversing a restriction introduced during the Biden administration—clearing the way for Nvidia to sell its most powerful data-center accelerators overseas.

Nvidia’s CEO on Trump’s Manufacturing Agenda

“American technology companies were extremely successful in China four years ago, but we lost roughly half of our market share as global competitors expanded rapidly,” Huang said during his address. “President Trump’s vision is to bring manufacturing back, secure our supply chains, and inject new investment into domestic production. These are bold steps towards creating real resilience and diversity in how chips are made.” Huang noted that earlier export curbs had hamstrung U.S. innovation by restricting the sale of high-end GPUs to Chinese customers—a move he called “a failure” that ultimately ceded market share to foreign rivals. Under the Trump administration’s revised stance, Nvidia regained the freedom to market its top-tier AI processors to new customers abroad, while simultaneously being encouraged to “build here” at home.

Huang’s use of the term “visionary” reflected his deep conviction that the combination of tariffs, tax incentives and domestic subsidies will help rebuild America’s semiconductor leadership. He pointed to recent legislation that offers generous tax credits to companies investing in new chip plants, as well as direct grants for research in advanced packaging and next-generation lithography. “To have a policy environment that rewards companies for opening fabs and developing advanced packaging right here in the U.S.—that’s the future,” he said. “When you have production capacity in your own country, you reduce geopolitical risk and ensure that supply chains won’t break in moments of crisis.”

Tariffs, Incentives and the CHIPS Act

Reindustrialisation under the Trump administration has taken multiple forms: in addition to imposing steep tariffs on imported goods, the White House has pushed Congress to pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocates \$52 billion in subsidies to spur domestic semiconductor manufacturing. These funds cover everything from factory construction to workforce training. Trump argued that tariffs on imports—especially from China and other Asian manufacturing hubs—would make U.S. plants more cost-competitive. Although economists warn that tariffs can have unintended consequences, Huang contended that, when combined with direct investment incentives, they form a comprehensive strategy to restore American industrial might. “Tariffs alone aren’t enough,” he said, “but when you couple them with grants and tax credits, you create an environment where fabs and packaging lines can thrive.”

Indeed, U.S. chipmakers have already begun mobilizing. Major foundries have announced multi-billion-dollar expansions in Arizona, Texas and Ohio, focusing on advanced nodes for high-performance computing and automotive applications. Nvidia itself signed a commitment to invest in adjacent U.S. packaging and testing facilities—essential steps for turning raw silicon wafers into finished chips. Huang emphasized that these ancillary investments are vital: “It’s not just about wafer fabrication. If you can’t package and test chips domestically, you’re still at the mercy of external sources.”

Huang pointed out that, before U.S. export restrictions tightened in 2022, Nvidia held roughly 95 percent of the Chinese market for data-center GPUs. Today, that figure has fallen to approximately 50 percent as Chinese semiconductor firms—with government backing—have stepped in. Huawei, for instance, now markets the Ascend series of processors, and other local players have made incremental progress in AI accelerators. “If we don’t get our export policies aligned with our industrial policies, we will lose further ground,” Huang warned. “With the current export curbs in place, more Chinese customers will just buy local chips, and that perpetuates the decline.”

In response, Nvidia has tailored a lower-cost Blackwell-architecture GPU for China, priced between \$6,500 and \$8,000—well below the \$10,000–\$12,000 range of its earlier H20 model. That new chip uses familiar GDDR7 memory rather than more advanced high-bandwidth memory and forgoes the premium CoWoS packaging. While not as capable as Nvidia’s top-end accelerators, the so-called B40 variant allows Chinese cloud providers and research labs to continue deploying AI workloads within U.S. export guidelines. A second Blackwell derivative, slated to begin production in September, will further mitigate Nvidia’s market share erosion. “These efforts help, but they cannot compensate for a complete absence of domestic fabrication,” Huang cautioned.

The Case for “Real Resilience”

At the heart of Huang’s advocacy is the idea of “real resilience” in the supply chain. He illustrated that, during recent geopolitical tensions, shipping delays and container shortages forced some companies to delay product launches. When Taiwan experienced a drought in 2021, capacity constraints at local fabs rippled through the tech ecosystem, causing shortages in everything from mobile-device chips to cloud-accelerator GPUs. “If you have redundancy—multiple wafer fabs, multiple packaging lines, multiple sources of raw materials—you can ride out shocks,” Huang asserted. That philosophy is reflected in Nvidia’s new multi-region approach: while some GPUs will still be fabricated in TSMC’s Taiwanese facilities, Nvidia is investing heavily in U.S. packaging partners and exploring joint ventures in Europe and Japan to replicate those capabilities abroad.

Huang’s comments have resonated with other executives in the semiconductor sector. At SC21, a recent technology conference in Silicon Valley, industry leaders cited the need for balanced trade policy that protects intellectual property while allowing U.S. innovators to compete globally. Several CEOs noted that the Trump-era rollback of Biden’s more stringent export curbs has already led to new contracts for U.S. AI hardware makers in the Middle East and Europe. Saudi Arabia, in particular, inked deals with Nvidia to supply DGX supercomputers for its national data-center park. The UAE, meanwhile, announced plans to launch an AI “research valley” powered by Nvidia infrastructure.

Yet some experts caution that Trump’s tariffs risk stoking inflation and complicating global supply chains. Consumer-electronics producers have reported higher component costs, and mobile-device makers have hinted at modest price hikes on laptops and smartphones. In response, Nvidia is racing to optimize production costs and keep its margins healthy. Huang maintains that, by focusing on advanced packaging and enhancing U.S. fabs’ output, Nvidia can avoid passing too much burden onto customers. “The goal is to build an ecosystem that can produce chips and systems at a reasonable cost, so we can continue innovating,” he said.

While most of Nvidia’s researchers, software engineering teams and data-center customers remain spread across global offices, Huang’s vision is firmly rooted in the United States. He unveiled plans to expand Nvidia’s U.S. workforce by nearly 50 percent over the next two years, hiring thousands of engineers and support staff in California, Texas, and Oregon. At the same time, Nvidia will increase spending on research partnerships with American universities, focusing on areas like quantum computing, robotics, and next-generation artificial intelligence algorithms. “We want American innovation to flourish,” Huang declared. “Having factories and packaging lines here means we’re able to take the latest innovations from the lab to the factory floor without delay.”

Huang also applauded federal investments in workforce development, such as grants for community colleges to train chip-fabrication technicians and STEM educators. “Building fabs is one thing, but if you don’t have a pipeline of skilled workers, those fabs will sit idle,” he observed. Consequently, Nvidia has committed funding to scholarship programs in semiconductor engineering and has partnered with trade schools in Florida and New York to create specialized curricula. “That’s part of the re-industrialization vision—ensuring America has the talent to design, build, and operate a complete semiconductor ecosystem.”

In publicly endorsing President Trump’s reindustrialisation agenda—tariffs, subsidies, and the CHIPS Act—Jensen Huang has positioned Nvidia at the center of a broader debate on the future of high-tech manufacturing. As his company enters new partnerships in Sweden, the Middle East, and beyond, Huang’s central message remains clear: resilient, domestic production of advanced semiconductors is not just a slogan but a strategic imperative. By calling these policies “visionary,” he underscores his belief that U.S. leadership in AI and high-performance computing depends on a robust, geographically diversified manufacturing base—one that can weather geopolitical storms and ensure continuous innovation. As Nvidia embarks on this ambitious course, its CEO is convinced that supporting American industrial renewal is the key to keeping the world’s most powerful chips at the cutting edge of progress—no matter where they ultimately serve.

(Adapted from EconomicTimes.com)

Categories: Economy & Finance, Entrepreneurship, Geopolitics, Regulations & Legal, Strategy