By Anjan Roy
It is an abrupt end to a glorious career in technology. The CEO who led a small tech company way back in 1991 to make it world’s most valuable one, has resigned amidst a cloud of suspicion about playing into the delicate hands of a Chinese spy.
Jensen Huang, CEO of $4 trillion Nvidia, has resigned this evening. Jensen’s resignation came just in the wake of an emergency meet of Nvidia board of directors on November 12 to decide on the fate of the controversial CEO in the background of the Chinese spy link revelations.
This is no ordinary resignation. The rumours about Jensen Huang’s extramarital affairs had already brought down the market value of the company by $400 billion in just a couple of days. The company played an outsized role in the undergoing AI boom in America.
Even wider implications could follow. The American equity investors are heavily committed to this company and wild loss in its valuations could set off larger ripples. Already the company’s shares have fallen by 13% since the disclosures of Jensen’s discomfiture.
The resignation follows revelations that Jensen Huang had an affair with the so-called chief executive of a small Singapore based company, MegaSpeed. Alice Huang was seen with Jensen at corporate meetings and other gatherings in the last two years.
It was subsequently admitted by Jensen that he had a extra-marital relationship with Allie Huang. As such, this should not have caused any more of ripples than some inter-personal matter, but fr the fact that Alice Huang is suspected to be a Chinese spy working for the Chinese security services under the guise of a tech company.
Alice Huang’s MegaSpeed was used for channelling some of the most prized semiconductor materials used for training AI models and other sophisticated operations. The US government had banned exports of any of these high-end chips to China and entities linked to China.
To hoodwink the American security agencies and commerce department Alice Huang’s earlier outfit was converted into MegaSpeed based of Singapore. Although a little-known and small company, MegaSpeed was soon engaged in buying the most highly prized chips in large volumes.
MegaSpeed had purchased Nvidia AI chips worth $4 billion and supplied these to Chinese entities, including one Chinese university specialising in military applications of AI techniques. These were used to develop the Chinese AI tools and models to beat the Americans in their wn game.
Naturally, questions were raised about the funding of a such a small company to such levels. Investigations revealed hat the Chinese internet giant Alibaba had funded MegaSpeed to fund these purchases. Almost a year back, American security and secret service agencies had tipped off about these links between Nvidia and the little known outfit.
Questions cropped up how these chips from Nvidia, for which there were long lines of purchasers and severe restrictions on their sales, such a small company could secure these chips in such large volumes.
The US security agencies are for sure alarmed as are the commerce department officials about the breaches. Clearly, all restrictions on sales of such super-sensitive articles have been infringed and bypassed and these found their way into Chinese hands.
At least in one case, Jensen had personally recommended lifting of restrictions for supplies to MegaSpeed and the Chinese. American sleuths are surely coming round to the view that Jensen Huang affair was a security lapse and could have far wider security ramifications. (IPA Service)
