Jensen Huang's resignation puts Nvidia's role as the "central bank of artificial intelligence" in check. The founder and CEO until last Thursday left the company after revelations of extramarital affairs, including one with a woman who The New York Times reported as suspected of espionage for China. CFO Colette Kress takes over as interim CEO.
The problem goes beyond a change in direction. Nvidia has built a web of financial commitments worth hundreds of billions of dollars to sustain the AI boom. In the six months to July 26 alone, it spent $42.4 billion on company holdings, and in August it agreed to secure up to $105 billion in OpenAI data center lease contracts in Ohio. That network involves Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR in a $500 billion funding program.
The Federal Reserve Bank and the International Monetary Fund are examining how leverage and interconnected financing could amplify a correction in the AI sector. In July, Fed officials discussed the possibility of a "widespread asset reset" if problems arose in the AI industry.
Jason Wu, deputy director of the IMF who oversees the Global Market Analysis unit, warned that "the economy and financial markets are standing on the same leg, which means that a downturn could have mutually reinforcing effects." Hyperscalers went from 1% to 10% of investment-grade debt issuance in two years.
While analysts rule out a repeat of the 2007-2008 crisis — Nvidia isn't "too big to fail" in the banking sense and has a massive capital buffer — systemic risk flows from companies that rely on its chips. If the value of Nvidia's GPUs falls, investors will question whether debtors will be able to repay their loans, and financial assistance from big tech could become a drag.
Sources:
• CNBC — Jensen Huang's ouster tests Nvidia's role as the 'central bank of AI'
• The New York Times — Nvidia, China and Jensen Huang
• CNBC — Nvidia's role as an AI financier
• CNBC — AI credit strain, CoreWeave yields top 16%
• IMF — Global Financial Stability Report, October 2026
