Chip sales to China part of US plan to build its own digital silk road: official

Name: China creates analogue AI chip said to be 1,000 times faster than Nvidia GPU
Uploaded: 2026-01-09T03:40:19.000Z
Duration: 5 min 4 s
Description: China creates analogue AI chip said to be 1,000 times faster than Nvidia GPU

Jacob Helberg tells Consumer Electronics Show audience that Gulf partnerships will help to stall Chinese AI advances

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Bochen Hanin Washington

Published: 11:40am, 9 Jan 2026Updated: 2:36pm, 9 Jan 2026

A senior Trump administration official has defended exports of advanced chips to China, arguing that the US is building its own “digital silk road” to counteract concerns that Washington is eroding the competitiveness of top US models.

The comments, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday, came amid questions from Chinese observers over why the US government would make certain advanced integrated circuits, such as Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chips, available to the country.

“Every minute that Chinese developers spend building on top of the American AI stack is time they’re not spending building on top of the Chinese stack,” US undersecretary of state for economic affairs Jacob Helberg told the audience of tech executives, investors and policymakers.

Addressing concerns that such exports to China would erode the competitiveness of the most advanced American chips, he said: “That is exactly why the US government has strategically pursued an approach where we have made partnerships in the Gulf that are essentially our equivalent of a digital silk road.”

Helberg was referring to Beijing’s drive to promote critical digital infrastructure around the world as part of the Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure programme.

Last November, the Trump administration approved exports of Nvidia’s advanced chips to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, months after announcing multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure partnerships with both countries as part of an effort to counter China’s reach in the region.

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China creates analogue AI chip said to be 1,000 times faster than Nvidia GPU

Chip sales to China part of US plan to build its own digital silk road: official

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Jacob Helberg tells Consumer Electronics Show audience that Gulf partnerships will help to stall Chinese AI advances

Jacob Helberg tells Consumer Electronics Show audience that Gulf partnerships will help to stall Chinese AI advances