Huang brought the chipmaker’s GTC conference, sometimes referred to as the “Super Bowl” of artificial intelligence (AI), to Washington for the first time, as the technology has become a key focus of the Trump administration.
The Nvidia CEO suggested Tuesday that the president and his administration deserve “enormous credit” for their efforts to boost energy development in the U.S.
“This pro-energy initiative, this recognition that this industry needs energy to grow. It needs energy to advance, and we need energy to win,” Huang said during his two-hour keynote speech.
“His recognition of that and putting the weight of the nation behind pro-energy growth completely changed the game,” he continued. “If this didn’t happen, we could have been a bad situation, and I want to thank President Trump for that.”
The administration has pushed to reduce barriers to new energy projects, particularly those related to AI, which requires massive amounts of power.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued a proposal last week that aims to help AI data centers get connected to the grid more quickly. Wright later joined Huang for a question-and-answer session at the conference.
Huang also embraced the administration’s push to reshore manufacturing, underscoring Nvidia’s efforts to build its chips stateside and touting the company’s first Blackwell chip produced on U.S. soil.
“We are manufacturing in America again. It is incredible,” Huang said. “The first thing that President Trump asked me for is bring manufacturing back. Bring manufacturing back because it’s necessary for national security. Bring manufacturing back because we want the jobs. We want that part of the economy.”
Huang, who is reportedly set to meet with Trump this week, has developed a friendly relationship with the president in his second term.
This appears to be a key as Nvidia attempts to navigate an often-tenuous relationship between the U.S. and China, in which both superpowers are vying for AI dominance.
The chipmaker scored a major victory this summer, when the Trump administration agreed to approve licenses for Nvidia to sell its H20 chips in China in exchange for a 15 percent cut of its revenue — a move that drew scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
Huang’s influence also appears to have broken through on other issues. Trump suggested last week that the Nvidia CEO was among those who convinced him not to send in the National Guard to San Francisco.
