Needles of reason: Huang's resignation will lead to the intensification of the technological "cold war"

The resignation of Jensen Huang from the post of Nvidia CEO may affect the entire bigtech market. He opposed trade barriers and restrictions on technology exports. Among the possible successors are Ian Buck, vice president of the company, and Tim Cook, ex-head of Apple, who, if appointed, will have to work in the context of increased state control over the technology industry. Experts believe that a change in leadership may lead to a revision of Nvidia's priorities, including in the gaming industry, and affect the balance of power in the AI chip market. At the same time, according to experts, by 2030 Nvidia's share in this segment may decrease from the current 90% to 50-60%. However, this decline is primarily due to the natural development of the market and the emergence of alternative solutions.

The impact of Huang's departure on the market

Jensen Huang was one of the most effective executives in the history of the technology business, and his departure will be a serious blow to Nvidia, said Alexander Gorny, co-founder of ShareAI and momeditation.app. According to him, the head of the company managed to turn the manufacturer of gaming video cards into a key supplier of infrastructure for training neural networks. The loss of such a leader can slow down business development in an environment where the speed of the technological race is crucial.

At the same time, Huang's departure alone is unlikely to lead to an escalation of the confrontation between the United States and China. Export restrictions are set by government authorities, and corporations are forced to follow them regardless of the position of their leaders. In any case, China is interested in developing its own production of AI chips, the expert notes.

— A possible reduction in Nvidia's share from 90% to 50-60% is welcome. Such a large share of one supplier is not a market, but a dependency. China needs its own chips under any Nvidia CEO, and the Russian Federation can only expect that it will eventually have such solutions," explained Alexander Gorny.

According to the expert, a similar approach should be applied in the Russian artificial intelligence market. Dividing the models into sovereign and national ones, which can be created using open components, preserves the space for competition. This is especially important in industries where the predominant use of sovereign models is assumed.: The choice of technology should not become a formality.

— Chinese manufacturers Huawei and Cambricon are gradually replacing American accelerators in the domestic market, and the growth of Moore Threads and MetaX shares shows that investors are counting on the further strengthening of local players. At the same time, the United States is preparing new restrictions on remote access of Chinese companies to Nvidia accelerators through foreign data centers, and the new leadership, according to Reuters, will not argue with Washington's position, unlike Huang," explained Maxim Abramov, head of the Laboratory of Applied Artificial Intelligence at the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Nvidia's leadership change may also affect a more familiar area for the company — the video game market. Although today the main profit comes from the infrastructure for artificial intelligence, it is the gaming graphics cards that have largely ensured the technological development of the company. Under the new leadership, this area may lose some of its former priority.

According to IT expert Sergey Pomortsev, Nvidia allocates about 15% of the total research and development budget to gaming technologies, while the share of this business in the company's total profit barely exceeds 7%. At the same time, gaming graphics cards are significantly cheaper than accelerators for technology companies. Therefore, the new management may have an incentive to reallocate resources in favor of a more profitable direction.

— Huang has always considered video games to be one of the key areas that laid the foundations of the company. After his departure, the gaming industry may be among the first candidates to reduce costs. At the same time, Nvidia remains the only company with a full line of high-end gaming graphics cards. AMD has not released direct competitors in this segment for several years, and Intel has not yet managed to gain a foothold in it," he noted.

However, a change of leadership will not necessarily lead to a curtailment of the gaming industry, says Mikhail Pimenov, an expert in the gaming industry. The GeForce line remains an important brand awareness tool, and the development of gaming GPUs has historically helped Nvidia create technologies that later found applications in other areas.

However, reducing investment in gaming graphics cards may weaken competition in the most expensive segment of the market, where Nvidia does not yet have a full-fledged alternative. AMD focuses primarily on the mass consumer, while Intel has yet to strengthen its position in the upper price range.

According to the expert, in this case, prices may rise and the development of graphics technologies, including ray tracing, DLSS and frame generation, may slow down. This will affect not only graphics card manufacturers, but also the gaming industry as a whole, which largely depends on the pace of development of graphics solutions.

The broader consequences of Huang's departure are related to the development of artificial intelligence and competition in the accelerator market. Here, the position of the company's head is important not only for its commercial strategy, but also for US technology policy.

The US is turning the AI industry into a tool to contain China

Huang's accusations of links to Chinese intelligence have given the United States a publicly understandable reason to tighten export restrictions on China. Suspicions of industrial espionage are shifting the conflict from the commercial plane to the sphere of national security. Under the current truce and reduced duties, Washington cannot impose new tariffs without violating agreements with Beijing.

At the same time, bans on the supply of advanced technologies under the pretext of protecting against data leakage can be presented as security measures that do not violate a trade deal. Washington has the opportunity for such a step, according to Andrey Serenko, director of the Analytical Center of the Russian Society of Political Scientists (ROP). At the same time, according to him, the presence of a reason is an important, but not a determining factor: if the decision had already been made, they would not have waited for the incident.

A change in Nvidia's leadership may weaken the position of supporters of free trade within the American technology business, the expert believes. While the company was led by Huang, who called export restrictions on chips a failure, the White House had an internal opponent. Among the possible successors are former Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was publicly supported by US President Donald Trump. However, traders prefer Ian Buck: according to Kalshi on November 12, the probability of his appointment was 35%, while on Polymarket Cook's chances were estimated at about 6%. Thus, the quotes of the forecast markets so far indicate the possibility of internal succession at Nvidia rather than the arrival of an external manager.

However, the initiative to introduce new bans comes not only from the White House, but also from a split in the American elites. According to political analyst Malek Dudakov, Democrats who won the congressional elections are planning to sharply tighten control over chip exports. This creates a difficult situation for the Trump administration: last year, he already tried to increase pressure on Beijing, but was forced to ease restrictions on the supply of chips in exchange for lifting the embargo on exports of rare earths. The resumption of bans could derail the deal and lead to a new commodity shortage in the United States, which is 90% dependent on Chinese supplies of rare earths. At the same time, the possibilities of export control remain limited: China successfully bypasses barriers by purchasing chips through third countries using parallel import schemes, the expert noted.

For the industry, this means increasing business dependence on the state: artificial intelligence is becoming the main field of global competition. The struggle is unfolding not only between countries, but also between interest groups within corporations. Nvidia lost about $600 billion, or 15% of its market capitalization, in a week. This is noticeable for the entire US financial system, although the AI market itself continues to evolve. According to Andrey Serenko, the race in the field of artificial intelligence will determine the balance of power for decades to come, and its coincidence with the political crisis in the United States makes the situation even less predictable. Malek Dudakov also draws attention to the risks to the sustainability of the markets.

As a result, the technology sector finds itself caught between a geopolitical standoff and an internal crisis in the United States. Washington's attempts to turn corporations into a tool to contain China are faced with dependence on Chinese raw materials and circumventing export restrictions through third countries. Nevertheless, the logic of confrontation increasingly subordinates the interests of business to the objectives of public policy.