Nvidia (NVDA) stock rose 1.1% to $224.65 in Monday premarket trading, according to Barron's, as investors focused on this week's meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, scheduled to take place in Washington. The stock entered the session up about 19% in 2026 but remains below its record closing high of $235.74, set in May.

Attention is turning to what Trump-Xi talks may produce. Artificial intelligence, trade and technology restrictions are expected to feature in the discussions. For Nvidia, the central question is whether the meetings will change the company's access to Chinese customers, after a period in which it has been restricted from competing freely in China's data-center processor market.

The Trump administration previously opened a route for Nvidia's H200 processors to be sold to approved Chinese customers. Beijing, however, has so far allowed only limited shipments, reflecting caution among Chinese authorities about becoming dependent on U.S. technology. According to reporting cited by Barron's, ByteDance and Tencent were previously permitted to receive only around 10,000 H200 processors each.

China Could Represent a $30 Billion H200 Opportunity

KeyBanc analyst John Vinh estimates that Chinese companies could purchase roughly 1.5 million H200 processors. At that level of demand, the opportunity could represent about $30 billion in revenue for Nvidia. The company's own estimate is larger: Nvidia pegs China as a roughly $50 billion market opportunity for its processors. The distance between those estimates and current approvals is wide: the roughly 10,000 H200 units each permitted for ByteDance and Tencent amount to only a small fraction of the 1.5 million processors KeyBanc's estimate contemplates.

The H200 is an older processor than Nvidia's current Blackwell products and its coming Vera Rubin hardware, meaning any potential China sales would involve prior-generation data-center technology rather than the company's most advanced systems. That aligns with the terms Washington has used so far, which opened a route for the H200 specifically rather than for Nvidia's most advanced products.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has argued that U.S. companies should be able to compete internationally while American customers receive the most advanced technology first. He has opposed a complete ban on chip sales to Chinese companies, a position consistent with the company's broader push for wider access to Chinese customers.

The company has already generated rapid growth without relying on Chinese data-center revenue. Nvidia forecast $108 billion of revenue for its current quarter, representing roughly 89% year-over-year growth, and it has raised its outlook for the next fiscal year to approximately 70% revenue growth. Demand for AI processors and the rollout of Vera Rubin are central to that outlook.

Jensen Huang Set to Attend State Dinner

Huang is expected to attend Thursday's White House state dinner for Xi, where other technology executives are also expected as AI features among the subjects surrounding the U.S.-China meetings. Ahead of the summit, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng have been discussing AI, trade and rare earth supplies. According to Reuters, AI access and security remain areas of disagreement between Washington and Beijing.

Any expansion of H200 shipments would provide Nvidia with revenue that is not included in some of its recent China assumptions. That makes expanded China access incremental to the company's outlook rather than essential to it, since the current growth trajectory rests on AI processor demand and the Vera Rubin rollout rather than Chinese data-center sales. The company has warned that restrictions have limited its ability to compete in China's data-center computing market.

There is no confirmed agreement to expand Nvidia's processor sales to China, and the outcome will depend on decisions from both U.S. and Chinese authorities rather than Nvidia alone. Nvidia's next scheduled financial report is expected in November. Before then, this week's Trump-Xi meetings will provide the latest indication of whether the chipmaker can increase H200 sales into China, one of the world's largest markets foriconductors.