On the streets of Taipei and Seoul, fans of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang mob him for autographs on books, posters and sometimes even on their bodies. In private, even billionaires Larry Ellison and Elon Musk were once reduced to "begging" for his coveted AI chips. The star power that 63-year-old Huang draws as the gatekeeper to Nvidia's chips shows how badly the AI industry is leaning on him for the graphics processing units that train models and run services such as ChatGPT. But he is not just a chip supplier; instead Nvidia has in recent years turned its swelling cash pile into a war chest to fund companies ranging from AI cloud-computing providers and suppliers to the biggest labs. Analysts say that makes Huang a potential risk to the AI industry as Nvidia investigates whether he was targeted by foreign intelligence after Huang confirmed his affair with a Chinese businesswoman accused of passing information to Beijing. "It is hard not to read the news over the weekend as negative given it brings the stewardship of one of America's most important companies and the architect of the US AI traj