--- date: 2026-11-12 subject: "Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO | Lutnick stalled chip crackdown | NY opens AI law registry" --- **Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's CEO**, with Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress named interim chief while the board searches for a permanent successor, following reports that he had a relationship with an executive who reported to him. **Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has not carried out a chip crackdown** that President Trump approved three times this year against companies suspected of funneling Nvidia AI chips to China, even after other cabinet officials sided with tougher export controls. **A Chinese university with deep military ties bought Nvidia H200 chips** through a local supplier despite sitting on a U.S. trade blacklist since 2001, and procurement records show other Chinese universities with defense links buying or renting restricted Nvidia chips the same way. **New York began registering large AI developers under its new safety law**, requiring companies with more than $500 million in annual revenue to sign up by Jan. 1, publish safety frameworks and report serious safety incidents within 72 hours. # Top Stories - **Huang resigns as Nvidia CEO; CFO Colette Kress named interim chief during search for successor** — Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's president, CEO and board member, effective immediately, the company announced Thursday. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress will serve as interim CEO while remaining CFO until a permanent successor is named, and the board will consider internal and external candidates. Director Harvey C. Jones, a former Synopsys CEO, became Nvidia's first board chair. The company gave no reason for the departure. It followed an overnight board meeting after The Wall Street Journal reported directors were preparing to remove Huang, and a New York Times report, citing five people who worked at the company, that he had an extramarital affair with health care vice president Kimberly Powell, one of his subordinates. Directors had been working with an outside firm to identify CEO candidates, per Bloomberg. Nvidia shares fell more than 7% in after-hours trading Wednesday. The company said it will report quarterly results Nov. 17 as scheduled. [Nvidia](https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-ceo-transition) [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/11/technology/jensen-huang-nvidia-affair.html) [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-11/nvidia-working-with-outside-firm-to-identify-ceo-candidates) [Yahoo Finance](https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/report-nvidia-preparing-oust-ceo-231218079.html) - **Lutnick stalls Trump-approved crackdown on Nvidia chip diversion to China** — President Trump has signed off three times this year, in May, August and Nov. 5, on moves against companies suspected of routing Nvidia AI chips to China, but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has not acted, Axios reported, citing six sources. At the latest round, in the Situation Room, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confronted Lutnick over Commerce's resistance to export controls, particularly on Singapore's Megaspeed. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Secretary of State Marco Rubio sided with Bessent. The New York Times also reported the confrontation. In the Oval Office, Trump called Elon Musk, who backed the controls. Lutnick warned the controls "will start a trade war with China." Trump approved the move, and Lutnick then offered to develop options. "Well, it still hasn't happened," one source said. A Commerce spokesperson denied that Bessent confronted Lutnick. [The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/11/business/economy/nvidia-affair-spy-bessent-lutnick.html) [Axios](https://www.axios.com/2026/11/11/trump-lutnick-nvidia-china-chip-export-controls) - **Blacklisted Chinese university with military ties obtains Nvidia H200s through domestic reseller** — Northwestern Polytechnical University, which has deep ties to China's People's Liberation Army, bought two Nvidia H200 chips in October for 874,700 yuan ($123,000) through a Chinese supplier, not from Nvidia, Reuters found in procurement records. Commerce added the university to the Entity List, the U.S. trade blacklist, in 2001 over alleged missile proliferation work. Since 2019, Commerce policy has been to deny most export license requests involving it. The administration's January rules allowing some H200 sales to China did not lift those restrictions. The university's cybersecurity school also signed two seven month contracts for rented servers holding eight H200s each, to fine-tune AI models. Reuters reviewed 26 Chinese procurement and corporate records from 2026, which show other universities, several tied to the defense sector, also buying restricted Nvidia chips or renting them through local suppliers. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/pla-linked-chinese-university-bought-nvidia-h200-chips-despite-us-blacklist-2026-11-11/) [The Straits Times](https://www.straitstimes.com/world/pla-linked-chinese-university-bought-nvidia-h200-chips-despite-us-blacklist-records-show) - **New York opens registration for frontier AI developers ahead of RAISE Act enforcement** — New York opened a registration portal Tuesday under the RAISE Act, its AI safety law, per TechCrunch. Frontier AI developers with more than $500 million in annual revenue, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, must sign up by Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. Covered companies must publish safety frameworks, report critical safety incidents within 72 hours and issue public transparency reports. A new state Office of Digital Innovation, Governance, Integrity, and Trust will enforce the law, with fines of up to $1 million for a first violation and $3 million for later ones. Gov. Kathy Hochul also launched a SUNY Binghamton center to independently test advanced AI systems. "When they start looking for ways to regulate AI, the first place they should look is New York," Hochul said of the incoming Democratic Congress, according to State of Politics. [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/10/openai-anthropic-face-new-oversight-as-new-yorks-ai-safety-law-takes-effect/) [State of Politics](https://nystateofpolitics.com/state-of-politics/new-york/politics/2026/11/10/hochul-to-use-dc-dem-connections-pushing-for-ai-regulation-federal-dollars) - **House GOP chairs ready subpoenas for Nvidia's Huang if he skips private briefing** — The Republican chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Select Committee on China set a 5 p.m. ET deadline for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to agree to a private briefing or offer another date, per Reuters. "If he doesn't agree to that or submit an additional date, I believe there will likely be subpoenas for him to appear," said Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the China panel. Foreign Affairs Chair Rep. Brian Mast told reporters his committee would consider a subpoena and that neither chair had heard from Huang, CNBC reported. The lawmakers are unlikely to let Huang send Nvidia's general counsel in his place, a person familiar with the talks said. Mast, Moolenaar and Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Rick Crawford requested the Nov. 18 briefing in a Nov. 4 letter. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/house-republicans-push-nvidias-huang-testify-float-subpoena-over-spy-allegations-2026-11-11/) [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/11/nvidia-jensen-huang-congress-resign-ai-chips.html) [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/11/congress-to-call-jensen-huang-in-to-answer-for-alleged-chinese-spy-affair/) - **Sens. Warren and Coons demand administration preserve Nvidia chip export records** — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House chief of staff Stephen Miller to preserve all records on Nvidia's advanced chip exports to China, per The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the letter. The senators asked the three officials to confirm in writing by Nov. 17 that preservation orders have gone out and to brief members on the national security risks, Anadolu Agency reported. "Questions also remain regarding whether or not prudent defensive counter-intelligence action was taken or national security recommendations were overruled," the senators wrote, according to Reuters. [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/top-democrats-target-trump-administrations-nvidia-china-records-0c212746) [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/senior-us-democratic-senators-urge-administration-preserve-nvidia-export-records-2026-11-12/) [Anadolu Agency](https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/us-senators-demand-trump-administration-preserve-nvidia-records-amid-china-spy-allegations/4121608) # China Watch - **ByteDance founder sees no catch-up with top U.S. AI developers before 2029, urges less reliance on distillation** — At an internal meeting with ByteDance's AI team, co-founder Zhang Yiming said the company could compete with OpenAI and Anthropic but would need until 2029 or 2030 to match them, per IT Home and Bloomberg. Zhang pointed to a shortfall in pretraining data, saying the datasets behind ByteDance's Seed AI models remain smaller than those of the leading U.S. developers. He told researchers to depend less on distillation, a technique that trains one model on the outputs of another. White House officials and Anthropic have accused several Chinese developers of building models that way. Zhang also laid out plans for a consumer AI assistant similar to Meta's Muse, due within weeks. [TechNode](https://technode.com/2026/11/12/bytedance-reportedly-plans-ai-assistant-similar-to-metas-muse/) - **U.S. data vendors sell roughly $500 million in AI training material to Chinese developers** — Mercor, Surge AI and Turing are among at least nine U.S. vendors that ChinaTalk found selling to Chinese AI labs. ChinaTalk put the sales at roughly $500 million, a figure it sourced to an August Forbes report rather than its own estimate. Mercor sold software engineering environments to Alibaba. Surge AI has reportedly sold to Tencent, Z.ai and Moonshot AI. [ChinaTalk](https://www.chinatalk.media/p/the-us-is-selling-rl-environments) - **China, U.S. and Russia weigh pledge on AI in nuclear arsenals ahead of Shenzhen summit** — Negotiators from the three countries are discussing a commitment to restrict the use of AI in nuclear command-and-control systems ahead of a planned leaders' meeting on the sidelines of next week's APEC summit in Shenzhen, the South China Morning Post reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Working-level negotiators narrowed the agenda after the war in Ukraine and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula largely fell off the table, according to the report. Russia has been cautious about formal curbs on nuclear command systems, and diplomats are also working toward a joint declaration that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. In November 2024, Beijing and Washington agreed in a bilateral statement that humans, not AI, should keep control over decisions to use nuclear weapons. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that Moscow was exchanging agenda proposals with Washington and Beijing. [SCMP](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3374003/china-russia-and-us-try-nail-down-ai-nuclear-agenda-time-apec-talks) [The Moscow Times](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/11/11/russia-china-and-us-in-talks-to-curb-ai-use-in-nuclear-arsenals-report-says-a94228) - **Nexperia chief keeps door open to rejoining China operations split off after Dutch intervention** — Nexperia interim CEO Stefan Tilger told Reuters on Tuesday that the Dutch chipmaker and its Chinese operations, which have run as separate businesses for more than a year, could still reunite. He said he believed Dutch and European authorities would accept reunification if Europe's economy and industry faced no risk, and that holding an equity stake in the Chinese operations was also possible. If the split becomes permanent, Chinese parent Wingtech Technology should be fairly compensated, he said. The rift began in 2025 with a Dutch state intervention aimed at keeping Nexperia from moving operations to China, and a Dutch court stripped Wingtech of control. The Netherlands later suspended the intervention, but the company split along national lines, severing a chain in which Nexperia made wafers in Europe and sent them to China for assembly, testing and packaging into chips for cars and industrial equipment. Tilger said Nexperia has expanded in Malaysia to replace lost Chinese packaging capacity and is benefiting from customers seeking supply chains not exposed to China. [TechNode](https://technode.com/2026/11/12/nexperia-interim-ceo-says-chipmaker-could-still-reunite-with-china-operations/) [MarketScreener](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/still-possible-chipmaker-nexperia-could-reunite-with-chinese-operations-ceo-says-ce785edadf8ef122) - **Baidu opens AI model marketplace that screens for swapped models and rates resellers** — Baidu founder Robin Li launched Token Exchange, a platform where companies and developers buy access to many suppliers' large language models through one interface, at the Baidu World conference in Beijing, Pandaily reported. Li said a flood of new models this year spawned resellers of tokens, the units of text AI models process, that take no responsibility for quality, leaving buyers unable to confirm which model is answering. Baidu said it tests listings to confirm each model is the one a supplier claims and gives suppliers public credit ratings, though it has not explained how either works. Users must register with a phone number and verify their real names. Baidu said the platform handles more than 700 billion tokens a day after one month, a figure not independently verified. [Pandaily](https://pandaily.com/baidu-token-exchange-model-marketplace-fingerprinting-supplier-credit-ratings) - **Chinese AI companies move to lock in overseas Nvidia computing capacity before possible U.S. curbs** — Chinese AI companies are trying to rent computing capacity running Nvidia chips at data centers outside China, fearing Washington will restrict their remote use of advanced chips, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. A major Chinese cloud provider has discussed internally whether to reserve overseas capacity, and smaller AI developers are approaching large rental providers in Southeast Asia. The companies fear the Huang scandal will build momentum for the Remote Access Security Act, a bill giving Commerce authority to regulate cloud access to restricted technology, which the House passed 369-22 in January. The bill awaits Senate action. Traders in China's gray market have also started stockpiling restricted Nvidia chips, two of the people said. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinese-ai-firms-rush-secure-nvidia-chip-capacity-spy-scandal-stirs-fear-us-2026-11-12/) [Investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/exclusivechinese-ai-firms-rush-to-secure-nvidia-chip-capacity-as-spy-scandal-stirs-fear-of-us-curbs-5020406) - **Bessent says U.S. and China to swap AI model testing practices in new dialogue** — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday the U.S. and China have begun a dialogue on superintelligence, the Trump administration's preferred term for advanced AI, meant to guard against shared risks and misunderstandings, per Reuters. He said the two governments plan to share methods for testing advanced models ahead of release and for keeping humans in charge of the technology. Washington and Beijing agreed during Chinese leader Xi Jinping's September visit to set up a channel for defusing serious AI incidents, CNBC reported. Bessent spoke to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations in New York and travels to China next week for President Trump's third meeting this year with Xi. "As we do so, we should harbor no illusions about the differences between the United States and China," he said. [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/11/11/trump-xi-summit-ai-nvidia-.html) [MarketScreener](https://www.marketscreener.com/news/us-china-should-stay-clear-eyed-on-ai-ties-bessent-says-ce785edbd18afe2d) # Policy Tracker - **Sen. Hawley becomes first GOP senator to back national data center moratorium** — Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) called for the Senate to enact a nationwide pause on building data centers while Republicans still hold the majority they give up in January, becoming the first Republican senator to back a national moratorium, according to The Hill. "Senate Republicans trying to figure out what to do in the next 6 weeks? Here you go: DEFUND Planned Parenthood, MORATORIUM on data centers, SUSPEND the gas tax, FUND rural hospitals, SAVE AMERICA ACT," Hawley wrote on X. The last item on his list is a voting bill that Trump urged Republicans to pass for much of this year. [AOL](https://www.aol.com/articles/hawley-calls-senate-pass-data-000846000.html) [Washington Examiner](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-and-environment/4800312/josh-hawley-republican-data-center-moratorium/) - **Senate clears second procedural vote on permitting bill with data center energy terms** — The vote was 62-21 Tuesday night, after a 73-25 vote the day before. The bill would require new data centers with at least 20 megawatts of demand to cover the added cost of the grid upgrades needed to serve them. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is one of four authors. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wants to strike National Historic Preservation Act provisions. Hawley filed eminent domain amendments. Amendments and final passage come next week. [AP](https://apnews.com/article/c6290598e26a7b01622e5c4eec571516) [The Hill](https://thehill.com/homenews/6212389-senate-advances-infrastructure-energy-bill/) [Investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/commodities-news/us-senate-to-take-up-energy-permitting-bill-votes-next-week-whitehouse-says-5019790) [Yahoo News](https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/bill-data-centers-pay-grid-184834747.html) - **Google adds privacy limits to $10 million Spirit Airlines data purchase for AI training** — Google agreed to added privacy protections in its $10 million purchase of data from bankrupt Spirit Airlines, which it plans to use to train AI models, clearing the way for a bankruptcy judge to approve the deal next week, per Reuters. The revised agreement, filed Monday in federal bankruptcy court in New York, resolves objections from unions for Spirit's pilots and flight attendants and carves out personnel files, The Wall Street Journal reported. Health and medical information is excluded, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said. An independent agent chosen with the unions will review the de-identified data, which Google may not try to re-identify. About 120 lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Steven Horsford objected last month that the sale would include 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams messages. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/google-agrees-addition-privacy-protections-spirit-airlines-data-sale-2026-11-10/) [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/pro/bankruptcy/google-agrees-to-privacy-in-spirit-airlines-data-sale-474550e4) [Investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/google-agrees-to-addition-privacy-protections-in-spirit-airlines-data-sale-5016321) # Capability & Research Watch - **Startup releases AI model to flag engineered pathogens offline, limits access to vetted testers** — Radical Numerics announced Omnii Defense, a model that runs on a laptop with a portable gene sequencer and no internet connection to spot both natural and AI engineered pathogens, Wired reported. The model gives each genome a threat score from zero to one that combines how unnatural a sequence looks with predictions about its function. With Bundibugyo virus, the cause of an Ebola outbreak in East Africa, removed from the training data, the model still flagged 33% of its sequences as pathogenic, the company said, and 22% with the whole virus genus removed. Access is limited to vetted testers while national laboratories and government agencies evaluate it. Bronwyn MacInnis of the Broad Institute said that detecting a signal is a long way from showing a pathogen was engineered. [Wired](https://www.wired.com/story/startup-fights-ai-bioweapons-with-ai/) - **Helsing unveils Clarity targeting software to rival Palantir's Maven in Europe** — German defense company Helsing launched Clarity, software that uses hundreds of specialized AI agents to sift drone video, satellite imagery, signals and military reports, identify targets and recommend how to engage them, per Reuters. Human operators must approve every strike, the company said. "A capability this critical must be sovereign," co-CEO Gundbert Scherf said in a press release pitching the system against U.S. providers, the Kyiv Independent reported. Palantir's Maven Smart System is already used by NATO and sits inside Pentagon workflows. Germany's armed forces have said they aim to begin introducing AI enabled systems next year. [CNA](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/helsing-enters-market-battlefield-software-built-combat-data-6542721) [Kyiv Independent](https://kyivindependent.com/helsing-launches-european-alternative-to-palantirs-military-ai/) # Industry & Market Watch - **Anthropic seeks about $1.33 trillion valuation in IPO, with Nasdaq debut Nov. 19** — Anthropic plans to sell 825 million shares at $70 to $78 apiece, valuing the company at roughly $1.26 trillion to $1.41 trillion and raising more than $61 billion at the midpoint, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing the company's Nov. 10 filing. Anthropic also plans to raise $26 billion from big investors including Google and Advanced Micro Devices. The target is far below the roughly $2 trillion floated months ago and the roughly $1.5 trillion investors expected a week before the filing, until a steep Nov. 5 selloff in AI stocks led major investors to push for less. Shares are expected to start trading Nov. 19 on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT. Each of the seven co-founders, including CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei, plans to sell about $250 million of stock, keeping stakes worth about $18 billion each, and through a class of shares carrying extra votes the group will control 51.1% of the votes. Anthropic put its annualized revenue run rate at about $81 billion as of the end of October. Board member Reed Hastings plans to buy $300 million of stock in the offering. [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/anthropic-ipo-valuation-8337b669) [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/finance/anthropic-founders-stakes-are-worth-18-billion-apiece-at-ipo-price-2c746365) [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/11/10/all-7-anthropic-founders-will-each-cash-out-about-250m-in-ipo/) - **Nvidia's Singapore sales line vanished after Megaspeed cutoff, WSJ analysis finds** — Nvidia stopped reporting revenue tied to Singapore in late 2025, shortly after it placed Megaspeed on an internal block list in June 2025, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. In the quarter ended July 2025, revenue billed to Singapore was $10.2 billion, 22% of Nvidia's total and up 81% from a year earlier. The next quarter, Nvidia switched to assigning revenue by customer headquarters instead of billing location, and recast figures moved most Singapore revenue into the U.S. column. Nvidia spokesperson Patrick Rutherford declined to say where Megaspeed sales were booked under either method or whether the change was linked to the cutoff. [Wall Street Journal](https://www.wsj.com/business/earnings/nvidias-disappearing-singapore-sales-deepen-mystery-around-megaspeed-7d483180) [Tiger Brokers](https://www.itiger.com/news/2682536082) - **Megaspeed vows cooperation with U.S. investigators as Singapore probes possible domestic law violations** — Megaspeed, based in Singapore, pledged to cooperate with investigations into U.S. national security risks and said it treats compliance with U.S. export controls with the utmost seriousness, AP reported. Singapore is investigating the company for suspected breaches of domestic laws but rejected reports that its authorities are investigating former executive Alice Huang over espionage, according to Fortune. The Information reported that Megaspeed and its Malaysian subsidiary Speedmatrix moved at least $7.5 billion in Nvidia chips. Megaspeed has denied wrongdoing. [AP](https://apnews.com/article/5403f152a601cf82ce939f1d24fffa0f) [Fortune](https://fortune.com/2026/11/11/megaspeed-nvidia-chips-china-singapore-malaysia/) - **Eric Trump-backed robot maker negotiating with Israeli military over up to 1,000 humanoids for Gaza tunnels** — Foundation Future Industries, a U.S. robotics startup whose investors include Eric Trump, is negotiating with the Israel Defense Forces over supplying up to 1,000 humanoid robots for Hamas tunnels in Gaza, with potential combat roles, the Financial Times reported. Company president Mike LeBlanc said he has held direct talks with the IDF chief of staff and toured Gaza tunnels with the company's Phantom MK1 robot in September. LeBlanc said the robots operate fully autonomously and can detect tripwires and neutralize booby traps, per Israel Hayom. The company has received more than $70 million in U.S. military contracts and funding, and Eric Trump became its chief strategic adviser in March, according to the TPS news agency. [Financial Times](https://www.ft.com/content/8117b912-ebc7-46b2-90cd-a1ec32e12c5a?syn-25a6b1a6=1) [Israel Hayom](https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/defense/article/21833618) [israel.fm](https://israel.fm/military/report-eric-trump-backed-startup-talks-supply-idf-up-1-000/) # Global & Geopolitics - **UK police inspectorate finds bias in facial recognition searches and no governing statute** — His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, the police watchdog, found that some officers acted on retrospective facial recognition matches, searches run on images after the fact, without enough corroborating checks, risking wrongful arrests, The Guardian reported. The report found the algorithm is more likely to wrongly flag people from ethnic minorities as suspects. Some investigators did not know the results were intelligence that required further inquiries, and some users uploaded blurred or unsuitable images. Inspectors said legislation has not kept pace and no comprehensive statutory framework governs the technology's use. Custody images that should have been deleted were kept. [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/nov/12/facial-recognition-errors-put-ethnic-minorities-at-risk-of-wrongful-arrest-police-watchdog-warns) - **Australia issues AI workplace guide warning of entry level job losses and worker surveillance** — Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth launched a government best practice guide on adopting AI at work, saying employers must give workers a clear plan on how automation could affect their jobs and a chance to move into new roles, The Guardian reported. The guide says entry level jobs will be the first automated and warns of "disproportionate impacts" on women, people with a disability, First Nations workers and both younger and older employees. It lists hazards including intrusive worker surveillance, poor rostering and unrealistic performance standards. The launch follows workforce cuts at Qantas and Canva in restructures tied to AI. [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/nov/12/fewer-hours-and-higher-wages-or-more-burnout-and-surveillance-employers-told-to-prepare-for-ai)