Jensen Huang: Spy row, second affair leaves Nvidia without its rockstar CEO

Detailed summary

Jensen Huang, who built Nvidia into the world’s dominant AI chipmaker, is stepping down as CEO after a second affair came to light. DW examines how losing its figurehead will affect the firm and the US-China AI race.

Nvidia's board met late Wednesday to decide on CEO Jensen Huang's future after reports emerged of a second extramarital affair — this time with an employee.

In a statement issued on Thursday morning, the world's most valuable chip supplier said Huang was resigning as president, CEO and board member, effective immediately.

The firm added that current Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Colette Kress would become interim CEO.

Under Nvidia's bylaws, Huang can be removed "with or without cause" by a majority vote of its 11 directors.

The New York Times first reported on the latest scandal, alleging that the 63-year-old Huang had an affair a senior Nvidia executive who reported directly to him.

The latest revelation emerged just three days after Huang admitted a relationship with a Chinese woman, whom United States intelligence agencies believe was spying for China. The woman, Alice Huang — no relation — is a former executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud computing firm that runs artificial intelligence (AI) data centers across Southeast Asia and is a major client of Nvidia.

The US government is investigating the startup on suspicion that it secretly sent some of its Nvidia chips to China, violating Washington's curbs on high-end semiconductors.

Those advanced Nvidia processors ‌are ​used to train and run the large AI models behind chatbots and other generative AI products.

Megaspeed denies the allegations and on Thursday pledged to cooperate with US investigators. H., the alleged spy, has been barred from entering Singapore and Taiwan — a key chipmaking island.

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