Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang backtracks after saying 'China is going to win the AI race'

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is walking back comments he made about who's winning the battle for supremacy in artificial intelligence.

The Financial Times on Wednesday quoted Huang as saying that “China is going to win the AI race,” comments he made on the sidelines of the news outlet's Future of AI Summit. Huang reportedly cited lower energy costs and looser regulations as the reasons.

Hours after that report came out, Nvidia released a statement from Huang via social media that hedged those comments.

"As I have long said, China is nanoseconds behind America in AI," he said. "It's vital that America wins by racing ahead and winning developers worldwide."

Huang has, in fact, said many times that the race between the two counties is separated by nanoseconds, which he has used as a rationale for his argument that his company should be allowed to sell its chips in the country. Doing so, he said, would make China dependent on the U.S.

In July, it appeared that argument had been successful, as the White House lifted the ban on select AI chip sales to China. Beijing has turned the tables, though, shutting Nvidia out of the market, saying it plans to conduct a national security review of the company's chips. Huang has said since that Nvidia's market share in China is now zero. Trump, meanwhile, has said the company cannot sell its most powerful chips to China.

The Financial Times quoted Huang as saying the U.S. and other Western countries are being held back by “cynicism” and excessive regulation concerning AI, while China offers energy subsidies that lower costs for companies that use Chinese-developed chips.

Nvidia has a financial interest in the AI arms race, of course. The company last week saw its market cap top $5 trillion, the first to hit that milestone, and it announced a $1 billion investment in Nokia. Nvidia stock is up more than 41% so far this year, and more than 1,200% over the last five years.