Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang just got a big win in the debate about artificial-intelligence regulation. That should help the chip maker's stock over the long term.

The stakes were high at the big AI lunch at the White House on Tuesday. Proponents of stricter curbs on the technology-such as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei-were set to clash with those like Huang who have insisted the industry should police itself.

The outcome was clear, if predictable. President Donald Trump came out saying "self regulation is very important." Huang was at his side and was praised by the president as "a handsome guy"-not necessarily the most important factor but a nice-to-have nonetheless.

Nvidia rose over 2% during intraday trading on Wednesday.

In terms of steps toward AI safety, the assembled CEOs signed a statement pledging to keep AI technology safe and committing to voluntary principles such as internal controls to monitor model development and external model reviews.

Most importantly for Nvidia, there appears to have been no mention of curbing data-center construction or the supply of chips for training models. As Barron's has previously written, Nvidia's strategy is to fuel a system of millions of developers who use its hardware, boosted by its recent acquisition of AI development platform Hugging Face.

"If OpenAI and Anthropic become the dominant platforms, Nvidia sells them the computing power. But if the future is fragmented across thousands of open models and specialized applications, Hugging Face gives Nvidia a stake in that world too," said Joe Tigay, portfolio manager of the Rational Equity Armor Fund.

Such a fragmented future is a potential nightmare for so-called AI 'doomers'-those who believe the technology has the potential to wipe out humanity-making it almost impossible to track rogue behavior. But for Nvidia it's the key to a diversified customer base over the long term and it's steaming ahead with the White House's blessing.