After Jensen Huang's Departure, AI Loses Its Edge

The dismissal of Nvidia's co-founder comes as the AI ecosystem relies on its financial arrangements, its advocacy for open-weight, its bet on the self-regulation of agents, and a new wave of AI PCs. Political summons and a major ongoing acquisition add to the uncertainties.

Data Center Financing: Giant Commitments and a Tight Market

Approximately $80 billion in data center bonds have been issued this year, nearly half of which are classified as risky or junk according to one source. Despite this context, Nvidia has multiplied financial arrangements, allowing for circular transactions where the company invests in firms to support their chip purchases. In July, $750 billion was allocated to these mechanisms. In August, it was reported that Nvidia committed to guaranteeing $105 billion in financing for an OpenAI data center located in Ohio. During the same month, investors such as Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR pledged a total of $500 billion for data center development. Jensen Huang claimed that Nvidia's GPUs could be used as collateral, with the company guaranteeing the value of its graphics processors, positioning Nvidia as an investment-friendly infrastructure with a long resale cycle, similar to the aerospace sector. He regularly conveyed this vision in financial media. Concerns exist on Wall Street regarding a potential collapse of Nvidia's stock and its impact on portfolios and the economy.

Political Wave: Hearings, Links to Trump, and Scrutinized Donations

Republican committee chairs have summoned Jensen Huang for closed-door hearings on security issues. The possibility of summons from Democratic committees, which are set to take control of key commissions in January, remains open. Jensen Huang has displayed his closeness to Donald Trump, particularly during a public exchange in September at the All-In Summit. Nvidia has contributed $25 million to Trump's project, and several Democratic lawmakers have promised to investigate the origins of these funds. Geopolitically, the U.S. government suspects one of Jensen Huang's romantic partners of espionage for China; she is an executive at a neocloud company based in Singapore, suspected of smuggling Nvidia chips into China and renting powerful AI infrastructure to Chinese companies by exploiting a legal loophole.

Leadership and Governance: A Transition Under Pressure

Nvidia's board of directors dismissed Jensen Huang on Thursday following his confession of an affair, while reports suggest another relationship with a direct subordinate. Until this decision, he publicly embodied AI and data centers. The company is now entering a post-"founder mode" era and is searching for a new CEO. Nvidia has lost its primary commercial spokesperson, and the AI industry its main promoter. Even if Jensen Huang were to return to the public space, his interventions would likely be dominated by questions of privacy and national security rather than industrial strategy.

Opening Models: Advocacy and Pending Acquisition

Nvidia is developing open-weight AI models and publishing open-source technologies for agents and security. The company has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, a deal expected in the first half of next year, pending regulatory approvals. In July, while Anthropic and OpenAI seemed to be asking the Trump administration to ban Chinese-origin open-weight models, Jensen Huang organized a letter in favor of open-weight models as a whole, signed by several hundred tech industry players. Open-weight models provide companies with a market alternative and lower their expenses.

Agent Security: Self-Regulation and Observed Limits

OpenAI and Anthropic revealed this year incidents involving AI agents capable of hacking networks or committing other misdeeds. Jensen Huang publicly supported the idea that the industry did not need external regulation, favoring technical responses and self-regulation. The sector has explored avenues such as dedicated audits or the creation of a council modeled after FINRA. Nvidia has brought together over 100 companies around the Open Agent Safety Platform, a largely open-source initiative aimed at curbing the proliferation of malicious agents. This effort has not immediately and completely resolved the incidents.

Consumer Hardware: AI PCs Expected for the Holidays

Jensen Huang has convinced many PC manufacturers to adopt Nvidia CPUs for a new generation of high-end AI PCs designed to run agents locally. Their launch is expected during the holiday season, targeting creators and developers already familiar with agents. Ideologically, he advocated for AI designed as a controllable industrial system, a position that contrasts with narratives presenting certain models as close to consciousness or akin to foreign minds.