AFP, Washington

Jensen Huang, CEO of AI chip giant Nvidia, met Friday with President Donald Trump as the company suffered a rough week on Wall Street over competition with China and the threat of tariffs on semiconductors.

Trump said he would be putting tariffs on imports of computer chips to the United States, which will punish Nvidia’s business that depends on imported components, mainly from Taiwan.

“It was a good meeting, but eventually we’re going to put tariffs on chips,” Trump told reporters afterwards.

High-end versions of Nvidia’s chips face US export restrictions to the major market of China, part of Washington’s efforts to slow its Asian adversary’s advancement in the strategic technology.

That policy came under scrutiny this week when Chinese startup DeepSeek achieved widespread adoption of its latest AI model that was developed without access to Nvidia’s export-blocked H100 chips.

After the DeepSeek breakthrough, US media reported the Trump administration was exploring ways to expand the restrictions to Nvidia’s lower end chips.

The DeepSeek model triggered a plunge in Nvidia’s stock Monday, wiping out nearly $600 billion in market value -- Wall Street’s largest single-day loss ever.

“We appreciated the opportunity to meet with President Trump and discuss semiconductors and AI policy,” an Nvidia spokesperson said.