Nvidia affair will hang over Trump’s upcoming trip to Asia-Pacific

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Trump may find his Asia trip that was meant to showcase the power of the US President - even after an election drubbing - will expose the limits of that power. Read more at straitstimes.com.

US President Donald Trump and Jensen Huang listen as President Xi Jinping of China speaks during a state dinner at the White House in Washington on Sept 24.

PHILADELPHIA – The Nvidia affair is threatening to hijack President Donald Trump’s trip to Asia even before he boards the Air Force One.

The administration is on the backfoot, forced to defend how America’s most precious AI technology has been leaking into China and to identify who is responsible.

The mounting outrage at the perceived squandering of the US competitive edge over China is also shattering the remarkable cohesion observed so far in the Trump Cabinet.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Nov 13 publicly blamed the Department of Commerce, led by former Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick, for failing to add Megaspeed to the US export blacklist despite months of pressure from the Treasury, Defence and State departments.

Lutnick has not publicly explained his decision but has agreed to testify on Dec 10 before Congress where China hawks, including some members of Trump’s Republican Party, want to know how Chinese companies have been obtaining top-end US chips which are restricted for export to China.

Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud computing and data centre company that supplies AI computing power across the Asia-Pacific, is part of the puzzle.

Carved out in 2023 from a Chinese gaming company, it reportedly bought US$4.8 billion (S$6.2 billion) worth of Nvidia’s coveted high-end chips and let Chinese clients like Alibaba access them via remote servers situated in Malaysia and Indonesia. It also allegedly diverted some of the chips to China.

Nvidia’s longtime chief executive officer Jensen Huang resigned from the position on Nov 12 after admitting to an extramarital affair with Megaspeed’s former top executive Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman believed by the US to be a spy.

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