Nvidia announced that its board has started an independent review following reports regarding chief executive Jensen Huang's relationship with an executive tied to Chinese intelligence. In a memo to staff, Huang admitted to an extramarital relationship, offered an apology to his family and colleagues, and promised full cooperation with the inquiry. The company stated it has no reason to believe national security or trade secrets were compromised, while Huang emphasized his intent to continue leading the semiconductor designer.
The disclosure prompted a drop of more than 5% in Nvidia's shares during premarket trading. Intelligence authorities identified Alice Huang, an executive at cloud infrastructure firm MegaSpeed, as having passed information to Beijing. MegaSpeed had previously faced allegations involving the routing of Nvidia graphics processors to Chinese entities despite existing export curbs. While Nvidia faced pressure, broader semiconductor peers such as AMD and Broadcom traded higher before the bell.
Crude benchmarks declined on Monday morning as statements from Washington dampened concerns over an immediate escalation in Middle East military action. International benchmark Brent crude fell toward $97.58 per barrel, while West Texas Intermediate slipped to roughly $90.45. The movement extends a sharp pullback from the previous week, where crude dropped markedly following signs that physical oil flows out of the Persian Gulf region remained steady.
Market participants reacted to comments from President Donald Trump indicating that new strikes against Iranian targets were improbable so long as diplomatic discussions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and address nuclear concerns showed movement. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned that significant obstacles remain, citing unrealistic demands from Tehran that have slowed negotiating progress despite ongoing tanker incidents near regional transit corridors.
Alphabet's Google announced the release of two new custom tensor processing units, branded as the TPU 8tx and TPU 8i Max, stepping up its competitive efforts in the artificial intelligence processor space. The newly revealed hardware complements the previously launched 8t and 8i processors, marking the first calendar year in which Google has debuted four distinct TPU architectures. Both chip systems are scheduled to commence shipments to customers in the coming year, broadening Google's hardware portfolio against dominant industry alternatives.
The two processors target specialized enterprise computing workloads. The TPU 8tx incorporates processors from AMD and provides hardware encryption designed for highly regulated organizations such as financial institutions and government entities. Meanwhile, the TPU 8i Max integrates dual processors within a unified package to handle long context window processing demands. Bloomberg Intelligence projections estimate that Google's direct TPU system sales could grow from approximately $12 billion this year to over $135 billion by 2028, excluding additional cloud rental revenues.
Chinese authorities confirmed an extension of the existing bilateral trade truce with the United States by two months, maintaining the suspension of a 24% additional tariff on incoming American products until January 10, 2027. Under the mandate announced by the State Council, a baseline 10% tariff will stay active on American imports. The prior reprieve was set to lapse on Tuesday, ahead of expected interactions between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the upcoming APEC summit.
Alongside the tariff postponement, China's Ministry of Commerce disclosed extensions on export-control exemptions for designated critical minerals and linked processing technologies through early January. Regulatory relief affecting 11 American corporations on the unreliable entities registry and 16 firms on Beijing's export control schedule was similarly prolonged. The development follows prior bilateral talks proposing reciprocal tariff reductions across $60 billion in trade, encompassing roughly $17 billion of American agricultural exports.