Sex, spies, and microchips

This story appeared in Today, Explained, a daily newsletter that helps you understand the most compelling news and stories of the day. Subscribe here.The movie version of Jensen Huang’s jaw-dropping affair basically writes itself.Cast BD Wong as 63-year-old Huang, the CEO of one of the world’s most valuable companies and a close friend of President Donald Trump. Kelly Hu can play Alice Huang, Jensen’s paramour and — even better — a purported agent of the Chinese government.The role of Trump himself, who reportedly knew about Huang’s undercover girlfriend but on Sunday said Huang “probably has an excuse for it,” can be played by Alec Baldwin. (Or a flightless duck — your pick.) However you cast it, this whole sordid affair has “serialized Netflix drama” written all over it.Today, ExplainedA daily, curiosity-driven guide to the big, weird, and fascinating ideas shaping the news cycle.But in all seriousness…the possibility that one of the world’s most powerful men was targeted by Chinese intelligence is a big deal on multiple scores. Nvidia has opened its own investigation into whether Huang was compromised, and congressional leaders have requested he brief them in a closed-door session.Nvidia supplies much of the computing power behind the AI boom, giving it enormous influence over the broader economy. “If they sneeze, everybody else catches a cold,” the writer and economic commentator Kyla Scanlon told Vox’s Today, Explained podcast last year. That makes this whole episode a little more weighty than your standard billionaire’s affair.Go a little deeperNvidia is the most valuable company on Earth — but in many households, it’s still not a household name.Huang and two other electrical engineers founded the now-$4.5-trillion company in 1993 with the fairly niche and nerdy goal of making high-powered chips that could render the 3D graphics for a new generation of video games.Then, in 2006, the company released software tools that let programmers use its chips for other demanding computing tasks, like mining cryptocurrency and training AI models. When companies like OpenAI began developing tools like ChatGPT, they immediately turned to Nvidia.That made the company a cornerstone of America’s AI buildout and a major economic force. In 2024, Nvidia alone accounted for more than a fifth of the S&P 500’s total return. And the rush to build out AI infrastructure has accounted for much of America’s recent economic growth, according to St. Louis Fed researchers.Nvidia’s influence extends to the White House, too, where Huang is a regular guest of Trump. The two became fast friends after having dinner together at Mar-a-Lago last year, and Huang has said Trump regularly calls him late at night to discuss topics like “protecting national security” and “creating more jobs.”But Huang’s ambitions have run up against one major obstacle: US restrictions on selling Nvidia’s most advanced chips to China. US officials worry that their enormous computing power could help Beijing develop weapons, strengthen its military, expand surveillance, and otherwise rival US military and technological dominance.That helps explain why China (allegedly) sicced a spy on Huang: They really want these chips. The New York Times reports that China’s top intelligence agency recruited Alice Huang both to learn more about America’s advanced chip industry and to potentially influence Nvidia’s push to lift export restrictions. Alice Huang, it should be noted, was a data center executive in her own right, and her company has been investigated for purportedly helping to smuggle Nvidia chips into China.All these investigations will hopefully, eventually, reveal whether their affair compromised anything beyond Huang’s marriage. They may also test how dependent Nvidia is on his leadership.For now, Huang is staying on as CEO. But uncertainty over his future could unsettle investors and trigger wobbles in the wider market. That’s the problem with concentrating so much power in any one person or company: One person’s (very) personal business can somehow become everybody’s problem.One link for later➨ Get a hobby. But not just any hobby: something that’s intentionally imperfect, unproductive or unquantified. There’s a tendency in American culture to try to optimize or commodify our leisure, the writer Jenny Odell explains. But that undermines some of leisure’s biggest benefits — like cultivating a sense of joy, wonder, or learning.Before you go…Did you know…that Alexander Graham Bell reportedly wanted people to answer the phone with a cheerful “ahoy”? Alas, Thomas Edison’s preferred greeting — “hello” — won out instead.Today’s trivia: Cleopatra was killed by what animal, according to several contemporaneous accounts? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)Yesterday’s trivia: Last week we asked you for Ricky Martin’s biggest hit. That would be “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” the 1999 bop that’s widely credited with launching the Latin pop explosion of the late 1990s and early 2000s.