Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has told CNBC’s Andrew Ross that US chipmakers — including his own company — are still about a decade away from achieving independence from Chinese supply chains. He highlighted this point during Nvidia’s third-quarter earnings announcement on November 21, where the company also warned about the expected negative impact from US export controls in the fourth quarter.

Huang, speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook Conference, referenced the Biden administration’s initiatives to separate China from the U.S. semiconductor supply, said: “We should absolutely go down the journey of it. But total independence of supply chain is not a real practical thing for a decade or two.”

These export controls have become increasingly stringent for Nvidia, particularly affecting its ability to export its most advanced GPUs, used in AI, to China. Huang also said that the most critical technology that we build, the leading edge of it is not made available to China.

When questioned about whether Nvidia should maintain its business dealings with China, Huang responded: “We’re a company that was built for business and so we try to do business with everybody we can. On the other hand, our national security matters and our national competitiveness matters.”

Biden has focused on restricting China’s access to financial and intellectual assets, extending beyond chip exports to restrictions on U.S. venture firms’ investments in certain Chinese industries.

Despite these restrictions, Huang pointed out that China might still acquire the technology or encourage its domestic chipmakers to develop similar capabilities. He specifically referred to sanctioned Chinese manufacturer Huawei, noting that Nvidia maintains a significant lead, approximately a decade, over these companies.

Featured image: Credit: NVIDIA