U.S. export restrictions on tech to China still exist. But on those items, Chinese companies can simply turn to friendlies in Singapore. Or, like the pirates of old, China can create a black market for chips. Some Nvidia chips faced export restrictions even in the Biden years.

Trump said Monday that he has cut a deal with chipmaker Nvidia, allowing it to sell certain artificial intelligence chips to China in exchange for a cut of the revenue, which would go to the U.S. government. Trump said he also negotiated a similar deal with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

Beyond Huang, another technological visionary who is worth paying close attention to is Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta Platforms. Over the last several weeks, Meta has reportedly been on an aggressive hiring campaign, poaching top AI researchers from OpenAI, Alphabet, GitHub, and Apple.