Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's stunning resignation has sent ripples through the global technology industry, with rival chipmakers looking to take advantage of the uncertainty and others wondering whether the downfall of one of AI's biggest cheerleaders will dampen the mood around the technology. Huang stepped down Thursday following reports of extramarital affairs, including one with a suspected Chinese spy. He had been the very public face of a company that dominates the market for computer chips used to train and run AI models.
Nvidia's position has been central to the AI boom. Nvidia trades with Apple as Wall Street's most valuable company and has invested heavily in other AI firms. Huang had predicted in March that the company would be grappling with a $1 trillion backlog in chip orders by the end of the year, doubling his estimate from a year earlier. Nvidia carved out an early lead by adapting its graphics processing units, or GPUs, from powering video games to training powerful AI systems, and demand soared as tech companies scrambled for more chips.S1S2
Rivals saw the shift as an opening. Broadcom, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices all saw their shares advance Thursday, as investors predicted that customers would look to diversify their suppliers. Analysts said the change might ultimately be healthy. Bret Greenstein, chief AI officer at the global consultancy West Monroe, said it could turn what had effectively been a monopoly into a horse race again, as competitors rush to meet growing demand. Finance professor Chester Spatt of Carnegie Mellon University said that while competitors' gains would be smaller than Nvidia's losses, chip purchasers may become much more reluctant to concentrate their purchases with a single source.S1S2
Competitors such as AMD, Intel, Broadcom and cloud providers Google, Amazon and Microsoft, which Nvidia itself lists as rivals in its annual filings, have been trying to catch up. Jay Aldebert, chief growth officer of International Services Inc., noted that Nvidia has typically responded to each competing product with a next, better chip. "Nobody's just sitting still," he said.S1S2
