Name? Jensen Huang
Westphalian identity? Taiwanese, U.S. American
Age? 63
Why is he in the news? Nvidia CEO resigned today following revelations of his extramarital affairs. At the time of writing, there are reports of three affairs, it could be more tomorrow, the situation is dynamic.
Why do we care? We do not usually care about extramarital affairs in international relations, although it is more common amongst the individuals we write about. Men in power and prestige are more likely to cheat on their spouse than women. We did not care when former French president Francois Hollande sat on the back of his security guard’s scooter exiting the Elysee palace to see his affair. However, Huang’s affair with Alice Huang (no relation) matters because U.S. intelligence services allege that she works for China.
Why should you care? Semiconductors are at the centre of every state that wants to partake in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race. Governments are convinced that they cannot compete if they are not self-reliant when it comes to AI. AI independence goes from the AI models, to the data centres powering these models and the semiconductors powering these data centres. Nvidia happens to be the biggest and best company at producing these semiconductors, hence this sudden interest in Huang and his affairs.
Who else cares? U.S. President Donald Trump is coming under scrutiny. The United States has enacted strict export restrictions on Nvidia’s chips to China. Huang has been building a close relationship to Trump in the last two years and even donated $25 million to his White House ballroom. Since then, Trump has eased export rules and cleared the way for Nvidia to sell certain advanced AI chips to China.
Any further comments? Rule number five in international relations: if you have never been approached by someone significantly more attractive than you and since you came into power this is suddenly the case, you are looking at a honeypot.
