Jensen Huang’s exit from Nvidia has sent a jolt through Asia’s semiconductor and artificial intelligence networks. Governments are now checking chip commitments, local AI projects, supply chains, and investigations tied to export controls.
The leadership change also leaves Nvidia facing questions about its future as the world’s top chipmaker, hardware provider, investor, and community leader in AI. Chief financial officer Colette Kress will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor.
China Faces a $3 Billion AI Computing Question
Nvidia’s board launched an independent investigation on November 8 after reports that Huang had been targeted by a Chinese spy operation. Huang had admitted to an affair with Alice Huang, a former executive at Singapore-based chip company Megaspeed, and The New York Times reported that he also had an affair with an Nvidia executive.
China’s foreign ministry rejected allegations on November 10 that Alice Huang was a spy, calling them “groundless and a smear against Beijing.” On Friday, a ministry spokesperson repeated China’s opposition to export controls that disrupt global supply chains and said the ministry was “not aware of reports linking restricted Nvidia chips to a Shanghai data center associated with Alice Huang.”
The fallout has raised uncertainty over more than $3 billion in Chinese AI computing projects that rely on Nvidia’s restricted processors. Many of those chips fall under U.S. export controls, making them difficult for Chinese companies to obtain.
Chinese companies have tried to access Nvidia chips remotely through data centers in Southeast Asia despite the U.S. ban on advanced chip exports to China. The Information reported that Alice Huang helped move about 240,000 H100, H200, and some A100 chips into China, while her companies invested in DeepSeek and promised to supply Nvidia chips.
Research analyzed by Will DePue, a former OpenAI researcher who leads Unemployment Labs, found that open-weight models from DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, and Ant Group were trained on Nvidia chips restricted by the U.S. government. The apparently widespread access to Blackwell GPUs among Chinese frontier labs has added pressure around enforcement.
Epoch AI estimates that about two million advanced chips entered China in 2024 and 2025 through schemes designed to hide their final destination. Its data also estimates that 275,000 Nvidia AI accelerators were imported to Malaysia during 2024 and 2025.
Nvidia shipped 678,000 AI accelerators in China during the first half of the year, down 44% from a year earlier and representing 34% of the market, according to IDC data. Huawei’s chip unit T-Head held 7%, Cambricon had 5%, Baidu subsidiary Kunlunxin had 4%, and Hygon had 3%.
Singapore Investigation Keeps the Export-Control Story Moving
Singapore seized Alice Huang’s passport in June 2025 while investigating possible false declarations about server purchases. The Ministry of Home Affairs said police took the passport to ensure she remained available for questioning because she was not based in Singapore.
Investigators examined whether servers shipped from Singapore to Malaysia later moved to other countries without proper declaration. In February 2026, police found insufficient evidence to establish that Alice Huang had committed offenses related to the suspected false declarations, but authorities said she knowingly provided inaccurate information about her role at Megaspeed.
She received a warning, was barred from re-entering Singapore, and had her passport returned that month. Singapore’s investigation into Megaspeed and six other individuals remains open, though the ministry did not identify those individuals or specify their alleged roles.
A fifth person received 41 charges on Friday in a Singapore fraud case involving computer servers that might have contained Nvidia chips and were exported to Malaysia. Prosecutors said the broader alleged transactions totaled about $390 million.
Singapore also sought information about U.S. server maker Supermicro from U.S. authorities and received “limited information or assistance,” according to the ministry. The city-state first raised the issue in July 2025 and repeated its requests several times after September last year.
Megaspeed, which was spun off from a Chinese gaming company, became Nvidia’s largest Southeast Asian customer in less than three years and bought more than $4.8 billion worth of chips since June 2024, according to the supplied reporting. The company has denied wrongdoing.
Singapore’s role as a billing and possible transit hub has drawn international scrutiny. Nvidia revenue linked to Singapore reached 22% in the fiscal quarter ending July 2025, up from 8% in 2023, although Singapore’s trade ministry estimated that chips physically delivered there represented less than 1% of Nvidia’s revenue.
Chris McGuire of the Council on Foreign Relations called Southeast Asia “a major hub for chip smuggling and export control circumvention,” with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of AI chips moving through the region each year. Alvin Camba of Lyvi described “blind spots between separate monitoring of trade flows and banking flows,” adding that matching physical shipments with financial transactions is “challenging.”
Asian Governments Protect Projects and Watch the Supply Chain
South Korea moved first to reassure its AI industry. The Science Ministry said Nvidia reaffirmed plans to supply 260,000 advanced GPUs to the country and continue joint AI projects. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix remain important suppliers of memory chips used in South Korea’s AI processors, while the government AI strategy council held an emergency meeting on Friday to assess the impact of Huang’s departure.
Taiwan’s Economy Minister Kung Ming-shin said Huang’s exit was unlikely to change the growth of the global AI industry. Taipei’s city government said Nvidia’s planned overseas headquarters remained on track, adding that the company had met its contractual obligations and that officials would continue supporting the project.
Huang has special status in Taiwan, his birth country, where he visited night markets, shared snacks with fans, and hosted banquets with executives of Taiwanese suppliers. He said Nvidia planned to invest $150 billion a year in Taiwan, and executives at those suppliers still expected steady orders as AI demand continues.
Japan’s Industry Ministry said it would monitor Nvidia as an important player in Japan’s AI semiconductor industry. Deputy chief cabinet secretary Masanao Ozaki said it was too early to assess the impact on the global AI industry, while Japan remains committed to securing a stable semiconductor supply.
The next phase may bring tighter controls. Blackwell GPUs are banned from export to China or Chinese-owned firms, while the Trump administration allows H200 exports through a circuitous route that lets the U.S. claim a 25% tariff. About 600,000 H200 chips are reportedly stockpiled in Hong Kong, awaiting shipment into China.
Chinese chips are catching up in performance, but Nvidia processors remain essential to AI development. As governments investigate routes, customers, and corporate responsibilities, Huang’s departure has turned one company’s leadership crisis into a test of Asia’s entire AI supply chain.
Based on
- Asian governments react to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s exit — techcrunch.com
- How Huang’s exit impacts China AI supply chain – Rest of World — restofworld.org
- Export-banned Nvidia chips are behind China’s most powerful AI models — uh-oh, Jensen! | TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
- Washington divided over how to deal with fallout from the Nvidia case – France 24 — france24.com
- Why Singapore keeps surfacing in Nvidia chips and China controversy — cnbc.com
