No one is indispensable. Not even the multi-billionaire, co founder and leader of the world’s biggest chip company at the centre of the seemingly unstoppable AI boom. Jensen Huang had to go not because his hyperactive libido led him to indulge in three extramarital affairs, two of them with Nvidia employees and a more contentious third one with a suspected Chinese spy.
There was an air of inevitability to it as Jensen put in his papers, despite calls of support emanating from the White House. As he did so, it appears this became more of a cataclysmic moment for all of AI itself as the US and other world stock markets, heavily impelled currently by the boom in the technology that is supposed to change not only the way we live but the ways of the world itself, tanked.
Jensen’s exit is seismic, but his company, which supplies over 90 per cent of the most advanced chips, will find a way out in time as much as Apple did when Steve Jobs died but Tim Cook took it to even greater heights. What the scandal with geopolitical and economic implications may have done now is to wake the United States up to the realities of the world that it tries to dominate. Whatever exceptionalism they may believe drives their technological pre-eminence, their tech czars are as susceptible or more to weaknesses of the flesh.
It may have been a simple honeytrap set up in an espionage operation that is almost a cliché considering it has been in existence for more than two millennia of modern human existence. Or, if you believe the Chinese, Alice Huang, or Huang Le, may not have been a spy at all. She could just be an enabler working for a Singapore company who brought high-power chips to the island nation’s data centres which shared their work and technology with Chinese companies and businesses. That she has returned to homeland China now adds to the intrigue.
Nvidia’s interim head honcho Colette Kress and senior management have their work cut out to retain the leadership in the matter of advanced chips that drive the systems and programs of AI though it may still be beyond their control how competing nations like China buy hardware to harness the highest computing power. Of course, the scandal may see the US clamp down on sales of the chips that drive data centres around the world, including in India.
What should worry the US is how smug the occupant of the White House was about national security having been compromised. There is no clear answer yet for the inexplicable decision to allow major sales of highly advanced chips that were giving the US the advantage in the technology race to companies close to China. Was it because the Nvidia honcho gave $25 million to Trump’s ballroom vanity project even as the AI industry showered millions in the US President’s direction?
The world would be worried more now about the stock market crash that could also presage the bursting of the AI bubble after the growth engine of super intelligence has been hit to the extent of a couple of trillion dollars in Nvidia valuation. If the bust cycle continues, there would be a global price to pay as we saw in the aftermath of the 2008 subprime crisis. It would be in the interest of all if the rules for selling advanced chips are spelt out and Nvidia continues to support the framework of legal AI, strengthened no doubt by the bubbly IPO debut of Anthropic, that is too big to fail.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
