The global AI chip race narrative used to be about U.S. national security, but apparently now it's about tariffs: Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the U.S. government 15% of the revenue they make from sales of high-end AI chips to China in exchange for licenses to sell to those chips in the country, the Financial Times reported, citing anonymous sources.

The US had frozen the sale of some advanced chips to China earlier this year as trade tensions spiked between the two countries.

The arrangement comes as President Donald Trump's tariffs continue to reverberate through the global economy.