Huang Renxun resigns and steps down. US think tank experts warn: Huida’s troubles have just begun

Huida announced on Thursday (12th) that Huang Renxun resigned from the company's president, CEO and board of directors members, effective immediately. In this regard, Zhang Kunyang, a researcher at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, said that Huida's troubles may have just begun. In the future, it will face issues such as congressional review, changes in the political situation of China's chip control, and the future direction of the new management.

Zhang Kunyang said on Facebook that Huang Renxun's resignation "does not mean that Congress will let him go." Three committees of the House of Representatives have already asked him to attend closed-door briefings, and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast has threatened to issue a mandatory subpoena. Now that Huang Renxun no longer has Huida's position, Congress can still ask him to answer in his personal capacity. And without the CEO's identity and company resources to back him up, he may be even more passive in dealing with congressional investigations.

Huida's board of directors has previously hired an external lawyer to conduct an independent investigation. Zhang Kunyang believes that even if Huang Renxun leaves, the company should continue the investigation. What happened? Does anyone else know? These problems will not automatically disappear just because he resigns.

Zhang Kunyang said that the new management also has many questions to answer. Now Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress takes over as acting CEO. He has been the financial director of Huida for more than ten years and should be quite familiar with the company's operations and business dealings.

But Zhang Kunyang pointed out that the question is how well does NVIDIA's management understand the actual situation of the Chinese market? Past research, as well as investigations by Reuters and other media, have revealed how Chinese military-related agencies seek Huida chips, including obtaining computing resources through Southeast Asian supply chains and cloud computing channels. Are other senior executives in the company completely unaware of these risks? Was there any warning from the internal compliance department? Who approves the relevant transactions? What Congress wants to investigate should be the management and compliance system of Huida's entire company, not just Huang Renxun.

Zhang Kunyang also mentioned that the biggest headache next is probably Commerce Secretary Lutnick. Foreign media recently reported that Trump had requested a crackdown on companies suspected of transferring Huida chips to China, but Lutnick delayed relevant law enforcement actions. There is even news that Finance Minister Bessant asked Lutnick face to face why Megaspeed has not been included in the entity list.

If these reports are true, the problem is very serious.

Zhang Kunyang said frankly that he had heard many people in the government have opinions about Lutnick's working methods in Washington, including that he often intervened in the policy affairs of other departments. Now that Jen-Hsun Huang has resigned, will Congress target the Ministry of Commerce next? He thought it was worth noting.

Zhang Kunyang said that the political situation regarding China's chip export control may change greatly in the future. In the past two years, Huida has spent a lot of resources lobbying in Washington, hoping to relax restrictions on chip exports to China. Huang Renxun himself is the most influential advocate of this theory. Now his sudden departure is indeed a new situation for lawmakers who advocate strict export controls.

Congress is discussing several important bills at the end of the year, especially the "Multilateral Coordination and Control of Hardware Technology Act" (MATCH Act), which requires the United States to coordinate restrictions on China's semiconductor equipment with allies such as the Netherlands and Japan. In fact, it is not only Huida that opposes these bills, but also other technology companies and industry organizations. After all, export restrictions will affect the business of many companies. However, without Huang Jen-Hsun, a figure who can directly communicate with Trump, NVIDIA’s future lobbying strategy will definitely need to be adjusted. As for whether this is enough to successfully pass the bill, it still depends on the subsequent negotiations in Congress.

Finally, Zhang Kunyang mentioned that he did not think Huida would lose its competitiveness directly because Huang Renxun left. Huida's current advantage is not just chip performance. The CUDA software ecosystem, NVLink high-speed interconnection, network equipment, and the entire AI computing platform are all its advantages accumulated over the years. Companies such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and their cloud providers have a lot of infrastructure built around Huida. Even if competitors such as AMD and Google TPU are catching up, it is still very difficult to completely replace Huida in a short time.

But Zhang Kunyang believes that without Huang Renxun, Huida's political line may change. Will the new management reconsider its export strategy to China in order to rebuild trust with Washington? Is it even possible that the future will be closer to Anthropic’s stance on Chinese technology and export control issues? Related issues deserve attention. Now that Huang is gone, the evidence found in Chinese military procurement documents will not disappear, and the loopholes in chip transfer and cloud computing will not be solved by themselves.

Zhang Kunyang said that what remains to be seen is to what extent Congress will investigate, how the Ministry of Commerce will explain, and what direction Huida’s new management will choose. This turmoil will definitely not end here.