The revelations about Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang’s affair with data center executive Huang Le (also known as Alice Huang) have raised national security concerns — given the U.S. government’s belief she is a Chinese spy — and sent the chipmaker’s share price tumbling this week.
But even before the extraordinary news emerged Nvidia had for some time been at the center of the U.S. and China’s complex relationship. Under President Trump, the U.S. government has allowed the company to export some of its world-beating chips to Chinese customers, while still preventing it from selling to them its most advanced chips that are powering the AI revolution.
Chinese interests, aided by third parties outside the country, have meanwhile been accused of smuggling Nvidia-made chips into the country on several occasions.
In our latest Big Picture, we offer a timeline of the events leading up to the controversy around Jensen Huang, tracing Nvidia’s efforts to convince policy makers it should be allowed to keep selling its chips to China alongside developments in the U.S.’s approach under the Biden and Trump administrations.
Savannah Billman is a Staff Writer for The Wire China based in NYC. She previously worked at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Eliot Chen is a former staff writer at The Wire. Previously, he was a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Human Rights Initiative and MacroPolo. @eliotcxchen
