Opinion | The Fall of the A.I. King

We live in the age of artificial intelligence — an age that Jensen Huang, perhaps more than any other single person, has made possible.The systems we are building with Nvidia’s equipment will transform our society and culture in ways we can’t imagine.

But Mr.Huang’s unraveling is not a technology story.

It is a timeless tale of masculine hubris, of a man undone by reckless overconfidence.Some things never change.When I wrote my biography of Mr.

Huang, I titled it “The Thinking Machine.” The name referred to the microchips that powered A.I., but also to Mr.Huang’s marauding, relentless intellect, which never slowed down or turned off.

In the wake of his stunning departure, spurred by revelations that he carried on at least two affairs, one with a woman whom U.S.intelligence determined is a Chinese spy, and another with one of his direct reports, I should write a sequel: “The What-Were-You-Thinking?! Machine.”Let’s start with Mr.

Huang’s affair with Alice Huang, an executive who managed a Singapore-based company that owns data centers in Southeast Asia.These data centers are suspected of helping Chinese A.I.

developers circumvent U.S.restrictions on sales of Nvidia equipment.

A recent report in The Information suggests they were used as a way station to illicitly smuggle some $7 billion of equipment into China.Since U.S.

intelligence captured evidence of Mr.Huang in a romantic relationship with Ms.

Huang, it’s hard to believe that he did not understand what was going on.Now consider Mr.Huang’s reported involvement with Kimberly Powell, an executive in the health care group at his firm and his direct subordinate.

A former Nvidia employee told me this affair was common knowledge in the company — the same company that employs both of Mr.Huang’s children in executive roles.

It’s a stunning and disrespectful display of arrogance.I asked the former employee why Mr.

Huang would behave this way, right in front of his kids.The forme...