Who Controls the Chips
Nvidia said its forecast for the global CPU market is about $200 billion and that the figure includes the Chinese market, a reminder that even the world’s most advanced technology is still routed through corporate and state gatekeepers. Chief Executive Jensen Huang said the Chinese market is “very important” and “very large,” while Nvidia said its H200 chips have been licensed to ship to China and that the company has received licenses from the U.S. government to sell its H200 chips.
Huang was in Taipei ahead of Computex 2026 and planned to meet with TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker. The itinerary reads like a tour through the machinery of concentrated power: one corporate giant meeting another, with the fate of global supply chains and market access shaped far above ordinary people.
The Hierarchy Behind the Market
The company’s forecast places China inside a market Nvidia values at about $200 billion, but the article makes clear that access is not simply a matter of commerce. Chinese officials have not granted full approval for certain shipments or transactions, as China fosters its own chip suppliers. That means the flow of chips is being managed from above by competing state and corporate interests, with workers and consumers left to live inside the consequences.
Nvidia’s H200 chips have been licensed to ship to China, but the article also says the company has received licenses from the U.S. government to sell its H200 chips. The language of licensing is the language of permission: a reminder that even when corporations dominate the market, they still depend on state authorization to move their goods across borders.
What the Powerful Call Access
The Chinese market is described by Huang as “very important” and “very large,” but the article gives no sign that ordinary people have any say in how these decisions are made. Instead, the process is mediated by U.S. government licenses, Chinese officials withholding full approval for some shipments or transactions, and Nvidia’s own calculations about where profit can be extracted.
China’s effort to foster its own chip suppliers adds another layer to the same hierarchy. Competing national systems are not presented as liberation from domination, only as rival arrangements for controlling production, distribution, and access. The result is a market shaped by institutions that decide who gets to sell, who gets to buy, and who waits for permission.
The Corporate-State Circuit
Huang’s presence in Taipei ahead of Computex 2026 and his planned meeting with TSMC underline how tightly corporate power is woven together across borders. Nvidia’s forecast, the licensing of H200 chips, the U.S. government’s approvals, and China’s partial restrictions all point to a system where the most important decisions are made by executives and officials, not by the people whose lives are affected by the technologies and supply chains they never control.
The article does not describe any grassroots response, mutual aid effort, or direct action. What it does show is the familiar architecture of domination: a giant company projecting a $200 billion market, governments granting or withholding permission, and national industrial policy shaping the terms of access. The public is left to watch the apparatus negotiate over the hardware of the future.