China tells tech giants to halt Nvidia H20 orders after U.S. official’s ‘addiction’ remark — Chinese leaders call Lutnick's comments 'insulting'

Nvidia Hopper H100 die shot.

Although China has been trying to move away from foreign chips for several years now, the Financial Times says that this effort has now intensified after being fueled by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick saying the aim was to make China "addicted" to US tech during an interview after Washington allowed Nvidia to resume the sales of its H20 to the country, using a term that holds signifcant cultural undertones in China.

“We don’t sell them our best stuff, not our second-best stuff, not even our third-best. I think fourth best is where we have come out that we’re cool,” Lutnick said during the July 15 CNBC interview. He also added, “So you want to sell the Chinese enough that their developers get addicted to the American technology stack. And that’s the thinking.”