NVIDIA CEO Quits, Data Center Backlash, Anthropic IPO: Can the A.I. Boom Last? What You Need to Know

[00:00:00] Rachel Scott: i'm rachel scott from abc news this is what you need to know one of the most powerful executives in tech is out and nvidia is facing a major leadership crisis the ai boom is also becoming a flashpoint in communities across the country and at the ballot box and nvidia's technology is showing up in places you might never expect from the cars we drive to the medicines we take but first the big story a leadership shake-up at one of the most powerful companies in the world after jensen huang resigned as ceo of nvidia huang co-founded nvidia more than three decades ago turning into one of the most valuable companies in the world with its chips now powering the artificial intelligence boom but on thursday nvidia announced that he was resigning as president and ceo and a member of the board the announcement came amid growing scrutiny over reports of his personal relationships just days earlier nvidia's board announced an independent investigation into reports that huang had been involved with a woman named alice huang who u.s intelligence officials suspect of working for chinese intelligence the new york times also reported a second extramarital affair this time with an nvidia employee who reported directly to him nvidia's cfo is now serving as interim ceo president trump had publicly backed huang before the ceo's resignation the president said the nvidia ceo told him that he had no idea alice huang was working for chinese intelligence but sources tell abc news secretary of state marco rubio told president trump about alice huang being an alleged spy back in may during a flight to china jensen huang boarded that flight a short time later but the president [00:01:41] Jensen Huang: said he knew nothing at the time when you went to china earlier this year in may did you know about these alleged ties with the chinese spy then or no i didn't hear about it then but a lot of people [00:01:52] Rachel Scott: have heard about it and jensen totally denies that nvidia's board says it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised beijing denies that alice huang is a spy calling the claims pure slander and while nvidia is now dealing with a major leadership change the broader ai industry is still attracting enormous investment another ai giant is preparing for a massive wall street debut anthropic the company behind the ai chatbot claude is seeking a valuation of up to 1.4 trillion dollars in its upcoming ipo it plans to offer 825 million shares at a price of up to 78 dollars each all of that ai investment requires something much bigger than software the rapid expansion of ai data centers became a flashpoint during the november midterm elections these massive facilities house the computers that power ai including the chips made by nvidia but they also require enormous amounts of electricity and water campaigns spent more than 380 million dollars on tv ads mentioning data centers but in harwood north dakota a town of fewer than 900 people voters rejected a proposed measure that would have required more public oversight of data centers more than 75 percent voted against it it was the only place in the country to reject that type of anti-data center measure so the ai boom is showing up in two very different places communities worried about the cost of data centers and wall street betting billions on companies building them with nvidia at the center of all of it but what happens when the company leading that boom suddenly loses the person who built it well elizabeth schulze explains hey rachel it's hard to [00:03:35] Elizabeth Schulze: overstate jensen wang's role in building up nvidia and boosting the broader ai ecosystem he was the man at the heart of the ai revolution co-founding the computer chip company back in 1993 he recognized early on that ai would require an enormous amount of computing power so that means chips that can process heavy loads of information at super fast speeds today nvidia is seen as years ahead of its competitors in building these chips which is why it's one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world worth more than four trillion dollars nvidia alone makes up six percent of the entire s p 500 so that means if you have a 401k or investment account you probably own shares of nvidia under jensen wang the company has also financed a lot of the build out of ai infrastructure including investments in data centers some on wall street even call it the bank of nvidia jensen wang for years pushed to sell the company's chips to china even when the u.s government imposed restrictions on them the government was worried that giving china access to this technology could make the u.s lose its edge in ai and wang was staunchly opposed to any ai regulations the big question now is who will ultimately fill his shoes shaping the path for nvidia and broader ai policy now to take three three places you may not expect [00:04:53] Rachel Scott: to find nvidia's technology and how the company's reach goes well beyond artificial intelligence at number three the cars we drive nvidia is working with automakers including mercedes-benz and volvo to develop technology for more advanced driver assistance systems and self-driving cars that means its technology could help shape what your next car can do at number two medicine nvidia's ai technology is helping researchers study diseases design proteins and speed up the search for new drugs the goal helping scientists to do in years what might otherwise take much much longer and at number one video games before nvidia became the face of the ai boom it was already a major player in gaming its graphics processors power millions of computers helping make video games look more realistic and run more smoothly it's another reminder that nvidia's reach goes well beyond ai and that's what you need to know so for the latest developments on nvidia and breaking news throughout the day check out abc news 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