Nvidia's $500 Billion AI Financing Plan Hangs by a Thread After Huang Exit

A $500 billion AI infrastructure financing plan is in flux after Jensen Huang resigned as Nvidia's chief executive on the 12th — and at least one of the six Wall Street firms that signed on has already discussed pulling out.

The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell as much as 6% on the 13th before closing down 3.43% in New York. The damage was broad: AMD dropped 8.75%, Broadcom 4.76%, SK hynix 4.30%, Micron 2.52%, Nvidia 2.01%, TSMC 1.67%, Tesla 1.82%, Alphabet 0.98% and SpaceX 0.59%. Even rivals expected to gain from Nvidia's troubles sold off, because investors fear the whole AI sector could shrink without Huang.

What happens to the $500 billion?

Huang signed memorandums of understanding on Aug. 10 with Apollo Global, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR. Each firm would raise money its own way — private credit, infrastructure funds, asset-backed securities, project finance — and build its own platform. Not a single loan has been made yet.

That's roughly the annual GDP of Belgium, promised and not yet delivered. The plan was already stuck on financial guarantee terms before Huang stepped down, according to The New York Times.

Huang had also positioned Nvidia as the sector's banker, taking stakes in neoclouds CoreWeave, Nebius and IREN, and investing in AI chip firms. Wall Street nicknamed the company "the Federal Reserve of the AI industry" because those deals generated billions in fees for banks and advisers.

Who is running Nvidia now?

Interim CEO Colette Kress, who remains CFO, is a finance specialist seen as Huang's temperamental opposite — and unlikely to make bold bets. The Wall Street Journal reported that this summer, while Huang discussed guaranteeing billions for customers who couldn't afford Nvidia chips, he told her she looked like "a deer in headlights" and dismissed her as "a CFO who only knows how to report."

Kress's record suggests rigor. She pressed VP Nico Caprez and VP Raj Mirpuri point by point last spring on a revenue-share credit scheme, and she helped cut Nvidia's planned OpenAI Ohio data center support in half — from a $100 billion pledge announced in September last year to $30 billion.

The Financial Times reported on the 13th that the board contacted Arm CEO Rene Haas, an Nvidia VP from 2006 to 2013 who also oversees SoftBank's overseas operations. The board denied to CNBC it had formally approached anyone. Other names circulating: AMD's Lisa Su, Tim Cook, Johny Srouji, Broadcom's Charlie Kawwas, Micron's Sanjay Mehrotra, AWS's Matt Garman, Google Cloud's Thomas Kurian, and internal candidates Ian Buck and Kress.

Was Alice Huang a Chinese spy?

U.S. intelligence agencies haven't decided. Attorney General Todd Blanche said on the 12th that he, the Justice Department and FBI Director Kash Patel had reached no conclusion on whether Alice Huang — the suspected agent at the center of the scandal — was a spy. Trump said the same day the key question is whether she was one. CNN reported that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence considers the spy label overstated, and the CIA judges current intelligence doesn't establish she knowingly passed information to China.

She's not cleared either. Taiwan's Liberty Times reported on the 13th that a dedicated CCP unit on AI competition placed her on its "semiconductor team," and that U.S. intelligence indicates she reported directly to Minister of State Security Chen Yixin. She is suspected of funneling at least $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia AI chips to Chinese companies through indirect channels, using paper companies in third countries.

The scandal is also squeezing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who refused three Trump directives to pursue export controls. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC that four agencies favored restricting Megaspeed — the Singapore company where Alice Huang was an executive — months ago.

What does China want from Seoul?

Two moves matter for Korean practitioners. First, Chinese AI companies are stockpiling Nvidia chips on the gray market, Reuters reported, fearing the Remote Access Security Act will pass. The bill, which would bar China from renting blocked chips through the cloud, passed the House 369-22 in January and awaits a Senate vote.

Second, Global Times urged South Korean chipmakers on the 13th to sell their most advanced memory into China as a hedge against slowing U.S. demand, calling it essential to find ways around U.S. sanctions blocking advanced HBM exports. That pressure lands on SK hynix and Samsung, which depend on Nvidia for a large share of HBM revenue. SK Group's July letter of intent with Nvidia — worth more than $500 billion — and NAVER's $1 billion stake sale now face uncertainty.

The first turning point comes at the U.S.-China summit on the APEC sidelines in Shenzhen on the 18th and 19th. Trump and Xi extended their trade truce to Jan. 10; if semiconductor controls stay tight, Beijing could retaliate on rare earths.