How US-China technology war reached AI as Nvidia spying scandal threatens American dominance

For years, the US and China have battled over who controls the technology shaping the global economy. Recently, the controversy surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has reignited this rivalry. US intelligence officials suspect a former executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed was working for Chinese intelligence. Megaspeed has been accused of potentially diverting Nvidia's advanced AI chips to China in violation of American export restrictions.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has defended the company's dealings with Megaspeed, stating that the company has scrutinized all deployments of its GPUs and has not found any compromised national security or Nvidia secrets. The board of directors has also stated that they see no reason to believe that any secrets were compromised. However, these claims have not been proven in court, and China has dismissed the espionage allegations as groundless.

The dispute over Huawei in 2019 demonstrated how much power the US holds over the global technology supply chain. Following the Trump administration's trade blacklist, Huawei was restricted from accessing American technology. Google also suspended business with Huawei, affecting its smartphone market. Huawei has since developed its own technology and responded by accelerating its own technological advancements.

The competition is now escalating in artificial intelligence, with Nvidia being a key player in this race due to its processors, which are used to train and operate advanced AI models.