Nvidia’s China Saga Shows Why America Should Sprint on AI

Résumé détaillé

When AI starts building AI, speed, security, and safety become one strategy. The U.S. cannot afford to lose its edge.

There is still much we don’t know about the China drama engulfing Nvidia right now.

But it points to a conclusion about the bigger picture story of the U.S.-China race on artificial intelligence, even as the doomers cry catastrophe: it’s time for America to accelerate.

This week, the world-leading chipmaker’s charismatic founder and CEO Jensen Huang, the heart and brain of its incredible three-decade rise, resigned amid reports of at least three extramarital affairs, two of them allegedly with Nvidia staff.

Alice Huang, the former chief executive of the Singapore-based data-center operator Megaspeed, no relation to Jensen, is said to be the third. Jensen Huang admitted in general terms to being unfaithful, though he has not confirmed any specific details or affairs.

A U.S. intelligence memo, in circulation for some time and reported by The New York Times, has suggested that Alice Huang may have been recruited as a Chinese spy. The Trump administration, which is investigating, has not yet reached that conclusion.

Beijing is calling the claims a smear. Nvidia's board, which commissioned an independent investigation, said it has "no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised."

Whatever the truth turned up by the various investigations, one of which is being conducted by the FBI, the story has an export-control spine running right through it.

Megaspeed rents Nvidia-powered computing to Chinese customers and has been investigated over whether its chips reached China, which it denies.

Nvidia's general counsel called the Commerce official overseeing export controls last year to ask about that probe and whether Washington had a role in Singapore's detention of Alice Huang, Bloomberg reported this week. Nvidia says he was unaware of the affair.

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