In mid-August, President Donald Trump broke with decades of U.S. national security policy when he struck a deal with Nvidia to allow advanced AI chip exports to China in exchange for giving the U.S. government a cut of its sales. A similar arrangement with AMD soon followed.
Traditionally, export controls on sensitive technologies were absolute: once restricted, companies couldn’t “buy their wayout” of the ban. This new approach introduces a different kind of corporate risk.
How dependent is the U.S. semiconductor industry on Asia?
Using Sismo’s global equity dataset, we looked at the top 2,000 U.S.-listed companies. Among them, 496 disclose how much of their revenue comes from Asia-Pacific. For these 496 stocks, the heatmap shows:
· Position from periphery to center (and green to red color gradient) based on their share of sales in Asia-Pacific last year
· Rounded tiles showing industry medians
· Semiconductor stocks framed in white
What emerges is striking:
· 51 publicly listed U.S. semiconductor companies appear, clustered near the center as the most Asia-exposed U.S. stocks
· Their average Asia-Pacific exposure is 62% (median 65%)
· For China specifically (data available for 38 firms), the average exposure is 30% (median 25%)
The takeaway: Asia, and China in particular, are the growth engines of the U.S. semiconductor industry. These sales not only drive U.S. companies’ revenues but also risk accelerating China’s technological capabilities. Whether diverting “15% of Nvidia’s sales” of advanced chips to China is a step toward industrial policy - or a detour away from it - is an open question for U.S. strategy.
