Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, arrives at a Korean barbecue restaurant for a dinner meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo and Naver Chairman Lee Hae-jin in Seoul, South Korea, June 5, 2026.
Chris Jung | Nuphoto | Getty Images
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told shareholders Wednesday that if a business opportunity conflicts with U.S. national security, the company will prioritize U.S. interests.
“National security comes first,” Huang said in a session shortly after the conclusion of the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
He added that if a company wanted to smuggle Nvidia chips or systems into countries with export restrictions, such as China, it would have difficulty getting them to work because Nvidia would not provide support or repairs.
“Advanced AI data centers are massive integrated systems that require reliable hardware, software, networking and ongoing support,” Huang said. “Trying to cobble together data centers with contraband is a dead end.”
Huang’s remarks come as Washington regulators and the Trump administration become increasingly wary that the export of AI software and hardware to China and other countries poses a threat to national security.
Earlier this month, Anthropicwhich uses Nvidia chips, has stopped Fable 5 and Myth 5 after the US government ordered it to disable access to its most advanced models.
Nvidia’s chips are subject to export controls since 2022which required the company to produce China-specific chips for the region that met US government criteria. But last year, the United States allowed the company’s H200 chip — the same model used by American companies — to be exported to the region.
Read more CNBC tech newsHuang said the U.S. government had approved those licenses, but Nvidia had yet to generate revenue from the chips and Nvidia did not know whether China would allow imports of its products. About 9% of Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 revenue came from China, including Hong Kong, a lower proportion than in 2025 and 2024.
Huang told shareholders at the meeting that the question of AI’s ROI “has been answered.”
He said that when AI output is useful, such as generating code, leveraging an Nvidia system to generate tokens, or bits of AI output, becomes profitable and means companies need more computing power. He noted that GitHub has seen pull requests almost triple this year thanks to AI.
“Nvidia systems may not be the cheapest to buy, but Nvidia generates the lowest cost tokens, the highest token throughput, and the most revenue,” Huang said.
He reiterated that Nvidia plans to return 50% of the company’s free cash flow to investors through stock buybacks and dividends over the next few years.
Nvidia generated more than $96 billion in free cash flow in its 2026 fiscal year.
“Nvidia offers investors a unique combination of exceptional growth, strong margin, free cash flow execution and growing returns on capital,” Huang said.
At the annual meeting, shareholders approved the company’s executive compensation plan in an advisory capacity and re-elected the 10 members of the board of directors. An outside shareholder proposal to amend the company’s bylaws so that all shareholder votes carry a simple majority.
