The largest company in the world is Nvidia, and it has been making the same product since 1993: a specialized computer chip called a GPU, or graphics processing unit. Those chips do all the sophisticated and complicated calculations needed to display 3D images, videos and graphics on our screens.
In the past, if you wanted to play “next-gen” PC games like Unreal, Earthquakeeither Half lifeyou probably bought one of Nvidia’s GPUs (more commonly called graphics cards at the time).
“If you were a really serious gamer in 1998, you’d be building your own high-powered PC at home. You’d be up to your ears in circuit boards and soldering equipment,” said Robbie Wheland, business and technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Today, explained co-host Noel King. “And you would buy one of Nvidia’s graphics cards and put it in your amazing high-powered gaming computer to play games on the Internet.”
Today, however, Nvidia’s product is not so specific. Their chips are more advanced and are now the hardware driving the rise of artificial intelligence. “Think ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM or Claude,” Wheland said.
Because Nvidia is now essential to the technology sector, that has made the company very important to the well-being of the entire American economy; The stock market can swing depending on whether Nvidia releases a good or bad earnings report.
The company and its founder, Jensen Huang, have also become powerful players within American politics, foreign affairs, and international diplomacy. Wheland broke down the story behind the company’s rise, its business dealings and the founder’s friendship with President Donald Trump in Today, explained.
Below is an excerpt from their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s a lot more in the full podcast, so give it a listen Today, explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Tell me about Jensen Huang, the man behind Nvidia.
Jensen Huang is co-founder and CEO of Nvidia. He was born in Taiwan, which has really become the intellectual epicenter of the AI boom. And he moved to the United States when he was a child.
Today, he is not only the CEO of the largest company on planet Earth, but he is also an incredibly influential and powerful person in foreign affairs and international diplomacy. He is a very good friend of President Donald Trump. And I think it’s not a stretch to say that he’s one of the most important single people on Earth right now, just considering how much power and how much economic power he oversees.
If we go back to Trump’s inauguration and think about who was with him that day, many of them were technology CEOs, but Jensen Huang was not among them. Why wasn’t he there?
My understanding is that Donald Trump may not have even known who Jensen was in January.
I knew this was a guy who was a technology CEO and had a very successful company. But when it comes to his management style; your negotiation style; And, more importantly, what Jensen could do for President Trump in terms of helping him negotiate international agreements has now become a spectacle that Trump puts on for world leaders. He brags about how successful Huang is. He says this is truly an example of American ingenuity and innovation.
But I don’t think any of that existed when Trump took office in January.
Tell me how this relationship develops and evolves.
I have to go to 2022; We are in the Biden administration. What they did was they took certain products, certain classes of products, which usually meant very powerful microchips, and they said, “You can’t sell them overseas to certain companies.” At that time, the AI race was really heating up. But Nvidia was not allowed to sell its chips in China, in particular, because there were serious national security concerns and serious concerns about competition and not letting China catch up to us.
That was a big problem for Nvidia, because it really limited how quickly it could expand around the world. Fast forward to this year, Donald Trump is back in the White House for a second term, and Jensen Huang obviously needed to revisit this issue.
There were several influential people on Trump’s National Security Council who successfully argued that it is a bad idea for us to sell our most advanced technology to the Chinese. And, in that context, Jensen Huang begins to build a friendship with Donald Trump because it was going to be very important for him to have a friendly relationship with a president, given how this war of ideas was developing.
In August of this year, he goes to Trump. He says, “What do I have to do to let them sell this chip in China again?” And the agreement they reached, after much negotiation between Nvidia and the Trump administration, is that the White House is asking Jensen to let the federal government know of his success by giving the government a stake in the company.
This is a big win for Jensen Huang. But there is a problem: the Chinese tell all customers in their country: “Don’t buy this. It’s not safe. It has security problems.” So, Nvidia starts developing a new chip for China. It’s called B 30 A.
And this is too much. This turns out to be too much for people in Washington who are concerned about national security and competition with China. And in fact they have decided, unbeknownst to Jensen Huang, that they will not approve the sale of high-quality chips in China.
And that’s where we are. Nvidia is still excluded from China.
Wong is seen joining Trump on international trips, consulting with the president on high-level issues. What’s been going on with these two guys behind the scenes?
There is a lot of speculation about whether this is another Elon Musk type situation. President Trump always likes to have a tech billionaire he can consult with and bounce ideas off of. One thing to know about Donald Trump, and I know this because I’ve talked to him directly about it, is that he really likes people when they’re successful.
He likes that there are successful people on his team. When Trump realized that this guy, Jensen Huang, was just a brilliant, really successful executive, and that he was building something really special and big and powerful at Nvidia, Trump really took advantage of that. It caught her attention and she decided that she really liked Jensen Huang. Now they talk often on the phone. Trump will call Jensen Huang late at night and discuss some things. Jensen is a frequent visitor to the White House, something he had never really done before this year.
But in the last month, it has backtracked on its seemingly unwavering commitment to allowing Nvidia to sell its products in China. I don’t think it reflects any kind of personality clash. I think Jenssen has been very good at managing the relationship and is pledging his support for the most powerful president on planet Earth using the language that president loves to hear.
Does Jensen Huang want to work in the government like Musk did, or does he just want to sell his chips in China and do what’s best for his business?
I have no reason to believe he has those kinds of ambitions. I think Jensen Huang has been thrust into this kind of role as an international diplomat and as a lobbyist, and all these different roles that he’s had to play. They are very new to him.
I think your main concern is to do what is best for your company, to sell as much product as you can around the world. Even more than that, it wants to get everyone hooked on its technology and make Nvidia more central to the long-term picture of how technology and artificial intelligence develop.