Jensen Huang’s years-long effort to get close to China

{"text":[[{"start":7.029,"text":"In January 2024, Nvidia’s then chief executive Jensen Huang ended a four-year absence from China, spreading goodwill as he handed employees traditional red envelopes of cash to celebrate the lunar new year."}],[{"start":21.056,"text":"Over the following three years, he intensified his efforts to mitigate the impact on his business from Washington and Beijing’s tightening restrictions on Nvidia’s AI chips, visiting China six times and accompanying President Donald Trump to meet his counterpart Xi Jinping."}],[{"start":38.246,"text":"Now Huang is facing intense scrutiny over his ties to China and questions about what he knew of the alleged large-scale smuggling of Nvidia chips into the country, following revelations of an affair with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whose company has been investigated over suspected illicit shipments."}],[{"start":57.8,"text":"The scandal has prompted growing calls in Washington for an investigation into whether the Nvidia founder, who resigned as chief executive on Thursday, compromised US national security through his dealings with China."}],[{"start":69.44,"text":"The US introduced a blanket ban on sales of Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China in 2022."}],[{"start":76.24,"text":"Yet before his dramatic downfall, Huang had also discovered limits to his influence in Beijing. Despite Nvidia’s more than two decades of business in China, he has not enjoyed the same access to the country’s political leadership as executives at other US technology groups, such as Apple, Tesla and Microsoft."}],[{"start":94.94,"text":"His first publicly recorded meeting with a member of China’s top leadership was in April 2025, when he met Vice-Premier He Lifeng, one of Beijing’s most senior economic officials."}],[{"start":106.872,"text":"The two met again in July, when Huang described their talks as a “wonderful meeting” but said they had not discussed trade restrictions."}],[{"start":115.009,"text":"Huang has insisted that Nvidia’s ability to sell its products in China ultimately serves US interests by making it more likely that America’s great tech rival also still relies on US products."}],[{"start":125.76,"text":"“That’s probably the most important strategic reason to be in China,” he said in an interview with CNBC in 2025. “Because there are so many developers there and because the world is going to adopt technology from one country or another — and we prefer it to be the American technology stack.”"}],[{"start":141.92,"text":"Despite repeated efforts to secure meetings with senior Chinese officials responsible for deciding the fate of Nvidia’s business, Huang struggled to gain access to policymakers driving Beijing’s campaign for semiconductor self-sufficiency, according to people familiar with the matter."}],[{"start":159.051,"text":"China has been an important market for Nvidia for more than two decades, with demand for chips initially driven by the country’s gaming boom and later by cryptocurrency mining and AI. On average, about a quarter of its sales were made in China every year between 2010 and 2022."}],[{"start":176.202,"text":"Huang travelled regularly to meet customers and suppliers and attend Nvidia developer conferences in Shanghai and Beijing."}],[{"start":184.926,"text":"To secure the meetings with He, Huang met Ren Hongbin, the head of China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and an important intermediary between foreign business executives and senior Chinese officials."}],[{"start":197.76,"text":"Later in 2025, Chinese regulators moved to restrict the import and use of less advanced Nvidia chips — a move by Beijing to try to promote domestic rivals such as Huawei."}],[{"start":209.2,"text":"According to people familiar with the matter, the push was led by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s powerful state planner, which has taken an increasingly prominent role in Beijing’s drive for semiconductor self-sufficiency."}],[{"start":224.72,"text":"As Nvidia’s fortunes in China deteriorated, Huang’s team sought meetings with officials from the NDRC and the Ministry of Commerce (Mofcom), submitting requests through Ren, according to people familiar with the matter."}],[{"start":235.92,"text":"Huang met commerce minister Wang Wentao in July 2025, but was unsuccessful in securing future interactions after Beijing restricted its sales in China. Nvidia did not secure meetings with the NDRC."}],[{"start":248.392,"text":"After months of unsuccessful attempts to arrange further talks with senior Chinese officials, Huang joined the delegation of US business executives accompanying Trump on his visit in May this year."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":260.205,"text":"During the visit, Huang greeted and briefly spoke with Xi and Premier Li Qiang, the two most senior Chinese leaders he had met publicly."}],[{"start":268.85,"text":"People familiar with Nvidia’s operations in China said the company’s limited political access partly reflected its modest investment in government relations."}],[{"start":277.278,"text":"Nvidia recruited Tony Jiang from Intel to oversee government affairs in China in late 2025. Before then, the company had not maintained a dedicated local team for engaging Chinese officials."}],[{"start":288.602,"text":"“Nvidia had not invested heavily in government engagement in China until recently. These relationships take years to build and there are many leading US tech companies that have persevered over the years and built trust in China,” said one person with knowledge of the matter."}],[{"start":304.3,"text":"Jiang, a former Mofcom official who worked on antitrust issues, is seen as “highly respected” in the American business community in China, they added."}],[{"start":312.337,"text":"But people familiar with the lobbying sector in China noted at the time that he faced an almost impossible task given the sensitivity of the topic and importance of Beijing’s efforts to create domestic AI champions."}],[{"start":324.469,"text":"Nvidia was also contending with Beijing’s competing internal priorities. Mofcom, recognising that Huawei was not yet capable of fully replacing its advanced chips, favoured imports as a way to sustain China’s AI development while domestic semiconductor manufacturers built up their capabilities."}],[{"start":342.44,"text":"By contrast, the national security-focused officials within the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) and Ministry of State Security viewed dependence on Nvidia as a strategic vulnerability and pushed to accelerate the adoption of domestic alternatives. Over the past year, the latter position has gained ground."}],[{"start":361.52,"text":"Last summer, Chinese authorities restricted the country’s largest technology companies from buying Nvidia chips designed specifically to comply with US export controls, seeking to encourage greater use of domestic processors."}],[{"start":374.06,"text":"Even so, Chinese AI labs remain heavily dependent on Nvidia’s silicon to train their most advanced models, a technically demanding process that requires enormous quantities of computing power."}],[{"start":384.823,"text":"Some have continued to access Nvidia’s most advanced chips through overseas data centres, particularly in south-east Asia, or through illicit supply networks. A crackdown by US authorities has made it harder to obtain large quantities of restricted processors on the black market."}],[{"start":401.276,"text":"At the same time, Nvidia has continued to provide engineering support to Chinese AI labs including Moonshot AI and MiniMax to optimise their models to run on Nvidia’s hardware."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":412.24,"text":"There is no publicly verified example of a leading model trained entirely on Huawei’s hardware, but DeepSeek, perhaps China’s best-known AI lab, has been at the forefront of efforts to use Huawei’s Ascend processors for training."}],[{"start":424.083,"text":"Huang repeatedly seized on the prospect of a stronger Huawei in his lobbying campaign in Washington, arguing that US export controls would only accelerate the development of Chinese competitors."}],[{"start":434.488,"text":"He described Huawei as “one of the most formidable technology companies in the world” and warned that restrictions on Nvidia’s sales risked handing the Chinese group a vast domestic market."}],[{"start":445.707,"text":"Advocates for greater chip controls in Washington have accused Huang of exaggerating Huawei’s capabilities to advance Nvidia’s commercial interests. More restrictive measures are on the way, with a law to stop Chinese companies remotely accessing chips overseas already making its way through Congress."}],[{"start":464.127,"text":"George Chen, partner and chair of digital practice at Asia Group, said that Huang’s assessment on Huawei — even if it was premature — will probably ultimately be proved correct."}],[{"start":474.165,"text":"“Now Jensen is gone and Washington will soon have new full ban on chips for China, Huawei will have dominating market share in China,” said Chen."}],[{"start":482.8,"text":"Huawei itself has grown more confident in its public pronouncements. In September, rotating chair Eric Xu told reporters that he predicted that at least six or seven Chinese AI labs were aiming over the next two years to train large models in China using its chips."}],[{"start":498.08,"text":"“It may sound ironic, but the fall of Jensen helps to strengthen Huawei’s leading position in China,” said Chen."}],[{"start":505.36,"text":"Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mofcom and the CAC did not respond to request for comment."}],[{"start":517.96,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1794581022_8314.mp3"}