The Week: Jensen Huang, Honeytrapped

• China has gained an edge in one of the world’s most dangerous technologies: the honeypot.• Jensen Huang has resigned as CEO of the tech giant Nvidia, as news of extramarital affairs with multiple subordinates and a spy scandal engulfed the company. The “other woman” in the honeytrap has been identified in numerous reports as a Chinese national and executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based company in the business of renting out computing power that relies on Nvidia’s advanced chips (which it has bought in huge quantities). U.S. intelligence has accused Megaspeed of smuggling contraband chips to China and identified the Nvidia CEO’s paramour as a Chinese spy, information that was passed on to senior officials in Washington. The FBI and Congress are taking a closer look. Nvidia’s advanced chips are absolutely critical for cutting-edge AI models, so handling this scandal will be complicated. We are ahead of China in the AI “arms race” to a degree that an effort dominated by the government would not match, but it’s a lead that Washington, if it mishandles its response to this mess, could all too easily undermine. We do, however, need once again to examine what chips U.S. companies may sell to China. The efforts that the Chinese appear to be making to get hold of a U.S. product make the case for not selling it to them. Huang has argued that if the U.S. withholds more advanced chips, the Chinese will develop their own. They will try to do so anyway. Beijing’s instincts are autarkic. There is no sense in the U.S. making that task any easier.