Jensen Huang affair with suspected spy threatens US AI lead

Nvidia sits at the center of the US AI supply chain, designing the top-tier chips that companies like Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI rely on even as they spend billions to secure compute and develop alternatives. The US has restricted sales of advanced AI chips to China to slow its progress, and China has made domestic alternatives a national priority while a black market for restricted Nvidia chips has emerged. Huang himself has opposed American chip-sale restrictions and last year secured White House approval to export Nvidia's H200 AI GPU chips to approved customers in China and other countries, giving him influence over policy. Beyond hardware, experts note Huang's relationships with tech executives and policymakers offer Beijing valuable insight into US infrastructure plans and export-control thinking. Nvidia shares have slumped since news of the affair broke, and experts warn that investigations could destabilize a company closely tied to its CEO's identity.