By Jarrett Renshaw and Karen Freifeld WASHINGTON/BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) -Nvidia's planned resumption of sales of its H20 AI chips to China is part of U.S. negotiations on rare earths, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday,

Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said the US’s reversal of restrictions on sales of chips to China followed recent trade negotiations with Beijing over rare earths. President Donald Trump curbed exports of Nvidia’s H2O artificial intelligence chips to China in April as part of an escalation of his trade war with Beijing.

Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. plan to resume sales of some AI chips in China after securing Washington’s assurances that such shipments would get approved, a dramatic reversal from the Trump administration’s earlier stance on measures designed to limit Beijing’s AI ambitions.