The Trump Administration is apparently pausing the implementation of an export ban to China for Nvidia's (NASDAQ:NVDA) H20 graphic processing units, according to a report by NPR.

The H20 is the most advanced chip offered by Nvidia that is still allowed to be exported to China. Industry observers and Chinese tech companies had expected the H20 to be added to the list of other banned hardware. Alibaba (BABA), Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY) (OTCPK:TCTZF) and ByteDance (BDNCE) placed at least $16B in orders for Nvidia's H20 server chips in the first three months of 2025, ahead of a potential U.S. ban on the sale of the AI chip in China.

The H20 chips are slower in performance than Nvidia's new Blackwell chips, which the company sells in most markets outside China. 

Nvidia shares spiked 14% during early afternoon trading on Wednesday. 

The change of heart by the White House came after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attended a $1M per head dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week, according to the report by NPR. Nvidia allegedly said it would make new investments in U.S.-based AI data centers.

Nvidia declined to comment on the report.

Also on Wednesday, Trump issued a 90-day pause on most of the new tariffs that just went into effect after midnight. However, China was not exempted. Rather, Trump said he was raising tariffs there even further - to 125%.

"I have authorized a 90 day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately," he added.

Semiconductor stocks across the board began rebounding on the news, many posting double-digit gains. Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) jumped 12%, Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL) and Qorvo (NASDAQ:QRVO) both surged 16% and Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD) rocketed 18%. Even Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) soared 17% higher. 

Not one name on Seeking Alpha's Top Semiconductor Stocks list was in the red.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) surged a staggering 15%.

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