PHOENIX — Jensen Huang’s resignation as Nvidia’s CEO is drawing attention to Arizona, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. makes Nvidia chip wafers at its growing north Phoenix complex, AZFamily and KTAR News reported.
Huang stepped down amid reports about his personal relationships and questions about whether advanced Nvidia chips reached China through a Singapore-based company, Megaspeed, according to CBS News and KTAR. Three House Republican committee chairs have asked him to attend a closed-door briefing Nov. 18.
Nvidia’s interim CEO, Colette Kress, is a University of Arizona graduate who joined the company in 2013, AZFamily reported. She will remain chief financial officer while the company searches for a permanent replacement.
TSMC produces wafers for Nvidia’s Blackwell chips in Phoenix, according to KTAR. Huang appeared in Phoenix last October to celebrate the companies’ partnership. “TSMC was a small company. Nvidia was an even smaller company. We grew up together,” he said then.
AZFamily reported that the turmoil does not mean TSMC’s Arizona plans are in jeopardy, but that the partnership will be closely watched by a state that has bet heavily on semiconductors.
U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., called on President Donald Trump to fire Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, accusing him of failing to enforce chip export controls. “He has a lot of explaining to do,” Stanton said of Huang on CNN.
Nvidia shares fell 4.3% Thursday after dropping as much as 14% at the open, KTAR reported.
Sources: AZFamily, KTAR News. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Wikideas1 / CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
