Huida invests heavily in lobbying to relax China's chip controls, Huang Jensen scandal triggers counterattack by Washington hawks

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang admitted to extramarital affairs, and the scandal involving Huang Le, a suspected Chinese female spy, continues to spread. In the past few years, Huida has significantly increased its lobbying expenditures on the U.S. federal government and Congress in an effort to relax export restrictions on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips in the Chinese market. Now, with the fall of Jen-Hsun Huang in connection with the female spy case, Washington’s China hawks are on the rise, which is bound to weaken Huida’s influence on U.S. AI policy through lobbying, and U.S. exports of AI chips to China are expected to be further tightened.

Data from OpenSecrets, a Washington-based non-profit organization that tracks campaign finance and lobbying data, shows that Huida’s lobbying expenditures on the U.S. federal government and Congress in 2025 were as high as US$4.97 million (NT$163 million), compared with The lobbying expenditure in the first three quarters of this year has exceeded US$4.69 million (NT$154 million), and the full-year lobbying expenditure is expected to exceed that in 2025.

Huida's main lobbying issues with the U.S. government and Congress focus on AI policy, semiconductor trade policy, export control regulations, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and the Chip Security Act. Thanks to Huida's active lobbying, in December 2025, the U.S. Congress gave up on passing the "Guaranteeing National AI Access and Innovation Act" (GAIN AI Act), which was intended to give U.S. customers priority in purchasing AI chips. In the same month, U.S. President Trump also approved Huida to export H200 chips to China and other countries in exchange for a 25% share of sales.

However, after the scandal involving Huang Jen-Hsun's affair with a female spy broke out, the U.S. Congress, in addition to requiring Huang Jen-Hsun to go to Congress to explain his dealings with Huang Le and Huida's security policies to prevent foreign espionage, is also expected to pass three China chip bills, which will further weaken Huida's lobbying space.

Sun Chenghao, an associate researcher at the Center for Strategic and Security Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said frankly that this turmoil may become an opening for the U.S. Democratic Party to review the Trump administration's science and technology policy toward China after the U.S. Democratic Party takes control of both houses of Congress in January next year. Congress is expected to extend the focus of the investigation from Huang Renxun's personal to chip export policies, including the Ministry of Commerce's export approval and end-use verification of Huida H200, etc. The probability of U.S. exports of advanced AI chips to China increasing.