Highlights for the morning: Nvidia to share revenue with the U.S., SoftBank's bid and a play against oil

Nvidia and AMD made a deal with the U.S. government and agreed to give 15% of the proceeds from sales of certain chips in China in exchange for export licenses. Nvidia has been at the center of a conflict with China over allegations that its H20 AI chips are unsafe, which the company categorically denies. At the same time, hedge funds in the energy sector changed their long-term strategy: they started to actively short oil stocks and cut their bets against solar energy. These and other topics are discussed in the review of key events by the morning of August 11.

Nvidia and AMD have agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of the proceeds from the sale of certain chip models in China - the Nvidia H20 and AMD MI308, the Financial Times reports, citing sources. In return, the companies will get export licenses to ship their chips to China.

The FT called the agreement unprecedented. However, the deal is in line with Donald Trump's policy of requiring companies to take action under the threat of duties - such as investing in the US - in order to bring jobs and revenue back to the country, the newspaper said. Last week, Trump announced that the US would impose a 100 percent duty on imports of chips and semiconductors, but companies investing in the US would be able to avoid the levies.

According to the FT, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang met with Trump last week. Nvidia did not deny reaching an agreement, the publication writes. The company stated: "We follow the rules set by the US government for our participation in global markets". AMD did not respond to the newspaper's request.

As Nvidia works to return to the Chinese market, China's state media accused Nvidia's H20 chips of being technologically backward, harmful to the environment and having "hardware backdoors" for remote shutdown, reports CNBC. The WeChat messenger publication argued that such features pose a risk to China's national security.

Nvidia said that "cybersecurity is extremely important" and that its chips do not have backdoors or kill switches - "emergency switches". The company resumed sales of the H20 in China after lifting a ban imposed by the Trump administration in April. The H20 is a simplified version designed for the Chinese market after restrictions on more advanced AI chips.

U.S. export controls are linked to concerns that Beijing could use high-performance chips for military purposes and AI development. Tensions remain between the US and China over semiconductors, despite the resumption of H20 shipments.

Bloomberg Green's analysis showed that starting in October 2024, hedge funds began actively shorting oil stocks while winding down short positions against solar - a reversal of a strategy that had been dominant since 2021, wrote Bloomberg.

Interest in oil is declining amid rising supply from some OPEC+ countries, fears of a slowdown in the US and Chinese economies and expectations of rising global oil inventories. Additional pressure is exerted by the Donald Trump administration's steps aimed at lowering oil prices, which is causing discontent among producers.

At the same time, positions in green sectors are improving. The share of funds shorting solar stocks fell in June to the lowest since 2021, while investments in wind power remain predominantly long. The growth in demand for renewable sources is attributed, among other things, to the projected increase in energy consumption due to the development of artificial intelligence. In China, green energy stocks are rebounding after overcapacity issues were resolved, while in the US, subsidy cuts under Trump have given investors more certainty, contrary to expectations.

Since April 2025, the S&P Clean Energy Index is up about 18%, while the Oil Companies Index is down 4%. The solar sector has been the growth leader, with the Invesco Solar ETF adding more than 18% over the period. Shorts remain in the electric vehicle segment, but the share fell to its second low in nearly five years, in line with forecasts of lower oil demand over the long term.

Masayesi Son is making the biggest bet of his career - that the SoftBank he founded will be at the center of a revolution led by artificial intelligence, wrote CNBC. He predicts that in 10 years, artificial superintelligence (ASI), 10,000 times smarter than humans, will emerge. This bold prediction makes sense to Song: in 2000, he invested $20 million in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which made SoftBank billions. Now he hopes to replicate that success by buying up and funding AI companies.

SoftBank has been aggressively consolidating its position in the AI sector in recent years, especially in 2024 and 2025. In 2016, the company bought chip developer Arm for $32 billion (today its market capitalization exceeds $146 billion), and in March 2025 announced the purchase of Ampere Computing for $6.5 billion. SoftBank invested more than $32 billion in OpenAI, and has backed dozens of other AI companies.

According to analysts, SoftBank's strategy encompasses the entire AI technology stack, from semiconductors and infrastructure to applications in business, education, medicine and autonomous systems. Son's goal is to integrate these components into a single ecosystem that will ensure long-term growth of the company's value.

- Japan's broad Topix index rose 1.21 percent.

- The benchmark Nikkei 225 added 1.85%.

- In South Korea, the Kospi index fell 0.1 percent, while the Kosdaq small-company index, on the other hand, rose 0.7 percent.

- Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.3 percent.

- Futures on the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were up 0.1-0.2 percent, while futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were up 0.16 percent.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor