Even if the market is handed over to Huawei, Huang Renxun will still join the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management Advisory Board to maintain ties with China.

According to Beating, amidst the US-China tech decoupling and export control storm, Nvidia co-founder Jensen Huang has agreed to join the Advisory Board of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management. The board is currently chaired by Apple CEO Tim Cook. Huang's low-key move highlights his continued efforts to maintain grassroots ties with Chinese political and business circles through private and academic channels, even as Nvidia faces a complete ban on the sale of its high-end AI chips to China. Founded in 2000 by former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, the Tsinghua SEM Advisory Board is one of the few elite forums that brings together top business and academic leaders from both China and the US. Its membership includes 65 global giants, including Elon Musk of Tesla, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and heads of financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock. The Advisory Committee holds an annual meeting in Beijing, providing a valuable communication channel directly between multinational business leaders and top Chinese decision-makers. Chinese leaders have also met with committee representatives on numerous occasions. Jensen Huang's decision to join the committee comes against the backdrop of Nvidia's unprecedented predicament in the Chinese market. Due to the increasingly stringent chip ban imposed by the US government, Nvidia's low-performance H20 chips, specifically designed for China, were completely banned from sale last April, while imports of the more advanced H200 chips are restricted by China's policies to protect its domestic industries. Last week, Huang publicly admitted that Nvidia has essentially ceded the Chinese market to local competitors such as Huawei, and advised investors not to have high hopes for recent approvals for entry into China. However, Huang also emphasized that Nvidia has cultivated the Chinese market for 30 years, possesses a vast customer base and partners, and is eager to resume serving the Chinese market.