[Tech Talk] The 31st Stratagem in the AI War

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. Photo by Kang Jinhyeong

The 31st stratagem in the Chinese military treatise The Thirty-Six Stratagems, best known for the saying “the best of the Thirty-Six Stratagems is to flee,” is the “honey trap.” It is one of the stratagems used when losing a war or facing overwhelming odds: a tactic of swaying an opponent’s feelings to achieve one’s aims. It is ironic that a method one might expect to see only in historical dramas is being discussed again at the heart of the battle for AI supremacy.

Allegations that Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, has ties to Chinese spies are growing increasingly serious. The New York Times (NYT) reported that U.S. intelligence agencies believe Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman close to him, was recruited by Chinese intelligence services. She allegedly sought to gather information on U.S. AI chips and exert influence over their supply to China.

Alice Huang is a former executive at MegaSpeed, a Singaporean data center company. One account says that, over drinks in Taipei in 2024, she claimed she could get Jensen Huang to come—and that when she called him, he actually showed up. The company is said to have bought at least $4.8 billion worth of Nvidia chips. While customers were lining up to get the latest chips, the CEO of the company selling them was someone who would show up at the call of a single phone call.

In this era, AI competitiveness depends on who secures which chips. At the heart of the battle for supremacy, Jensen Huang has repeatedly urged the U.S. administration and Congress to ease restrictions on exports of advanced chips to China. The first line of the “honey trap” section of The Thirty-Six Stratagems reads, “When the enemy’s forces are strong, target their general.” If the allegations are true, the idea of targeting a cutting-edge industry came from an ancient military treatise. On November 8 (local time), Jensen Huang admitted to having an affair and apologized. Nvidia’s board has launched an independent investigation. South Korea, which had been deepening its cooperation with Jensen Huang, cannot help but watch the situation closely.

AI performance evolves with every new version. But affection, trust, and desire do not follow such update schedules. To understand the story of companies building the future faster than anyone else, we turn to an ancient military treatise. Chips quickly become outdated, but tactics for swaying people’s hearts rarely grow old.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.