Lutnick gets grilling on Nvidia chip sales to China in letter from Sen. Chris Coons

senator chris coons sent a letter to commerce secretary howard lutnick pressing him on nvidia's h200 chip sales to china, first reported by cnbc. the letter follows an april 22 senate appropriations subcommittee hearing where lutnick said the u.s. had not sold any h200 chips to chinese companies. "we have not sold them any chips as of yet," lutnick said. that contradicts nvidia ceo jensen huang's march statement that nvidia had gotten approvals from both the u.s. and chinese governments to sell the chips. coons, also on the senate foreign relations committee, said he remained "deeply concerned" about the export, calling it a "serious risk to our national security and economic leadership." coons asked lutnick to respond within a week with the number of h200 chips licensed for export to china, how many have shipped, and how many more the commerce department plans to license. the letter comes weeks before president trump is scheduled to travel to china to meet xi jinping. the trump administration told nvidia in 2025 it would need a license to export chips to china — previously at least one-fifth of nvidia's data center revenue came from china. a commerce department spokesperson did not comment.