Huawei claims it’s built a desktop PC that uses only parts made in CHina.

The company launched the Qingyun HM650 last week and said it uses Huawei’s own Kirin X90 processor, a ten-core 20-thread machine with a clock speed of 2.3 GHz. The machine runs a newly developed enterprise version of HarmonyOS, the OS Huawei developed to end its dependence on Android and which it intends to run on most of the devices it makes.

A single Chinese government agency has reportedly signed up for 600 of the machines. That’s not an indication this machine is a curiosity, because Beijing has ordered all government entities to shift from Wintel boxes to local alternatives.

While Huawei has reportedly claimed local companies manufactured 100 percent of the components in the machine, it is unclear if all those components use Chinese designs. The Register mentions that uncertainty as many non-Chinese companies continue to operate factories in China.

Even if Huawei is using some parts that aren’t entirely Chinese, the debut of the Qingyun HM650 is bad news for Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm, as all are suffering as the PC market shrinks due to the rising cost of memory. China’s government is an enormous buyer, and losing the chance to bid for its business is unlikely to be helpful.

Japan announces emergency response package after wave of cyberattacks

Japan’s government last Friday announced emergency funding to help local organizations strengthen the nation’s cyber-defences.

The ¥10 billion ($63 million) package follows a wave of cyberattacks that have disrupted railways, retailers, KFC’s logistics provider, and cloud computing operators.

The emergency package aims to help Japanese government agencies to use AI to nail infosec basics, and to build tools that let the National Cybersecurity Office aggregate information about cyberattacks. Some funds will also go towards supporting victims.

Lenovo’s APAC boss shifts to lead Motorola

Lenovo is looking for a new leader of its Asia-Pacific operations after shifting the boss, Amar Babu, to a role as mobile business group general manager and global president at Motorola.

Amar led Lenovo in the region for over five years and the company credited him with turning it into “a more balanced and diversified business and a key growth engine.”

“Across the portfolio, AP maintained its #1 PC position, while our mobile business achieved notable growth, with Motorola reaching nearly 9 percent market share in India and the #2 smartphone OEM in Japan,” according to a company announcement. “Our infrastructure business achieved profitable growth and nearly double-digit market share, while Solutions & Services continued to strengthen its best-of-breed industry position and significantly increased its advanced services business mix to over 50 percent.”

Lenovo has not named a new leader for its APAC outpost.

Vietnam hails homegrown USB storage chip

Vietnam’s government last week announced the nation’s first domestically-designed security chip – a 28-nanometer device that apparently integrates encryption algorithms in silicon.

The chip is already in use on secure USB storage devices that Vietnam’s government employs to store info for government and defense agencies, plus the Communist Party.

The nation hopes to use the chips to secure storage of the national digital signature certification system, and critical infrastructure systems in electricity, water, oil and gas, and telecommunications.

Hanoi says the chip needs more testing before the government will trust it to protect state secrets, but hailed the chip as an important step towards development of sovereign security capabilities.

Apple’s biggest ever education deal

Apple last week quietly announced it has won its biggest-ever sale of Macs into the education market in the Philippines.

Speaking on the company’s Q4 earnings call, CEO John Ternus said Apple sold 172,000 MacBook Neos to the Department of Education in the Philippines, which will deploy them to teachers and staff. ®

Nvidia’s board has opened an investigation into its CEO Jensen Huang after he admitted to an affair, amid allegations he had a romantic relationship with a woman US authorities feel is likely a Chinese spy.

The AI hardware giant’s board published a statement on Sunday afternoon that states it is “initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.”

The New York Times is the source of that reporting. On October 29 it alleged US government intelligence agencies decided to investigate a woman who goes by Alice Huang and/or Huang Le, on grounds she passes intelligence with Beijing.

In that story The Times used the term “close relationship” to describe the Nvidia CEO’s associations with both Ms Huang and US president Donald Trump.

On Sunday the newspaper alleged US authorities believe Alice Huang and Jensen Huang shared a “romantic” relationship.

The Times further alleges Ms Huang is a Chinese citizen who worked for a Singapore-based company called Megaspeed that has bought plenty of Nvidia hardware and is suspected of doing so to make it available to Chinese users, either by running inside datacenters or perhaps even facilitating transport to the Middle Kingdom.

The US has for years banned or restricted exports of advanced GPUs to China, partly because it feels Beijing’s armed forces can use them to build systems that will erode America’s military superiority.

Any relationship, of any sort, between Jensen Huang and a Chinese intelligence operative would therefore be enormously concerning. The company told the NYT that Jensen Huang and Alice Huang just had normal CEO-to-customer-exec chats that were no threat to Nvidia intellectual property or US national security.

Shortly after Nvidia’s board published its statement, Huang sent an email to staff that the company made public.

“I owe my family and all of you an apology,” the email opens. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”

Huang’s email doesn’t explicitly link his actions to The Times’ reports, but he says he supports the Nvidia board’s decision to open its investigation “and will cooperate fully.”

“To my colleagues at NVIDIA, including those I have worked alongside for decades, and to our board, partners, and shareholders around the world: you deserve better from me,” he wrote, without specifying if that’s a reference to infidelity. “Leading NVIDIA is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility. I am fully committed to NVIDIA and will work to earn back your confidence.”

“I love our country and our company,” the CEO added. “I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.”

The CEO’s mail, and the board’s statement, make no allegations about any “close relationship” with Ms. Huang.

The exact nature of that relationship therefore remains mysterious, as does Nvidia’s relationship with Singapore, a tiny island nation that has sometimes been the source of 22 percent of the company’s revenue.

Singapore is simply incapable of hosting as much Nvidia kit as that volume of purchases would buy, because its government limits datacenters to 1.6 GW of energy consumption. When asked to explain that oddity, Nvidia has said that it’s satisfied Singaporean entities buy its hardware on behalf of end-users in other locations, and that such deals are not used to evade the USA’s sanctions.

Nvidia is not a notably scandal-prone company, but in 2022 it did admit to having previously misrepresented the impact of cryptocurrency mining on sales of its gaming hardware. China has opened an antitrust case, and US authorities may have considered doing likewise.

Jensen Huang, however, has never presented as the kind of CEO who makes operating at the edge of the law a regular tactic. Nor does he hold sufficient Nvidia shares or voting power to unilaterally make major decisions.

This leaves the leader of the world’s top AI company appearing to have made a very human error. ®