Outside of the U.S., China remains one of the most important markets fueling demand for high-performance chipsets, particularly graphics processing units (GPUs). Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has estimated that the AI opportunity in China alone could be worth as much as $50 billion.

Trump said Monday that he has cut a deal with chipmaker Nvidia, allowing it to sell certain artificial intelligence chips to China in exchange for a cut of the revenue, which would go to the U.S. government. Trump said he also negotiated a similar deal with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

The arrangement crafted by the Trump administration is “unusual,” analysts told CNBC, but underscores the president's transactional nature.