Jensen Huang stood before Nvidia shareholders on June 24 and said the quiet part out loud: “National security comes first.”
It’s a notable admission from the CEO of a company that has spent months lobbying Washington to let it sell advanced AI chips to China. The statement, made during a Q&A session at Nvidia’s annual shareholder meeting, captures the impossible tightrope the world’s most valuable chipmaker is walking between its balance sheet and its government.
The Senate wants answers
Huang’s declaration didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came weeks after a very public chain of events that put Nvidia’s China business under a microscope.
On June 1, a report surfaced detailing Chinese military efforts to procure Nvidia chips. That’s a problem when your CEO has previously claimed the Chinese military doesn’t depend on your hardware.
