Nvidia stock didn't react much to talks between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week. But the latest news out of China could give the chip maker some impetus.

Nvidia shares were down 0.9% in premarket trading Monday at $223.10. It was moving in line with other chip stocks after ChatGPT-developer OpenAI said over the weekend it would pause training of its latest artificial-intelligence models amid safety concerns.

Nvidia stock rose 1% over the past five trading sessions, with little apparent progress made on a U.S.-China deal over AI technology which would unblock hardware sales. However, China's government may be softening its stance.

Beijing has ?indicated it might allow Chinese companies such as ByteDance and Alibaba to buy Nvidia's RTX Pro 5500 chips, according to a report from technology-focused news outlet The Information on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Shareholders could be forgiven for rolling their eyes at the seemingly endless saga of Nvidia's Chinese sales. But there are reasons for optimism.

The RTX Pro 5500 is designed for high-end desktop computers, meaning it's a bit different from the data-center hardware that has been subject to U.S. export controls and Chinese concerns about making the company's infrastructure overly reliant on Nvidia. And it could be a significant revenue driver-the chips would be priced at about $13,000 each and ByteDance alone could be interested in one million units, according to The Information.

"U. S. firms continue to be restricted by a combination of outdated U.S. export controls, which cover gaming products released nearly a half a decade ago, and China's own limits on U.S. imports," an Nvidia spokesperson said in an emailed statement Monday.

That doesn't sound like Nvidia is ready to celebrate just yet but in light of mounting U.S. concerns over AI safety, having China as a buyer would be handy.