NVIDIA CEO Jensen Hwang drinks beer with SK Group Chairman Choi Tae-won, LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo, Naver Corporation founder Lee Hae-jin, and others at a restaurant in Seoul’s Hongdae district on Friday, June 5, 2026. NVIDIA has recognized three major memory chip manufacturers to provide cutting-edge, high-bandwidth products for U.S. companies’ AI applications. Regarding accelerators, Mr. Hwang admitted this for the first time. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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Nvidia’s While the leadership shakeup is unlikely to cause immediate disruption at major Asian semiconductor suppliers such as Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Jensen Huang’s departure does raise questions about the company’s long-term product strategy and supply chain relationships.
The bigger question for investors and suppliers is whether NVIDIA can keep up the pace of innovation and maintain the close relationships with key partners that Huang helped drive as the company built an edge in artificial intelligence chips.
Nam Dae-jong and Kim Young-mi, analysts at South Korean securities firm Daol Investment & Securities, said in a research note on Friday that Hwang’s departure is unlikely to affect the semiconductor industry’s short-term outlook.
However, they pointed to uncertainty regarding Nvidia’s medium- to long-term product roadmap, including how the new management team will work with partners across the AI ecosystem.
asian chip manufacturers
One key question for Asian chipmakers is whether Nvidia’s relationships with manufacturing partners are likely to change under new leadership.
Nam and Kim expect the foundry relationship between NVIDIA and TSMC to remain strong given the partnership the two companies have established.
The companies also expect Nvidia’s relationship with Samsung’s foundry business to continue, citing growing collaboration between the two companies, including manufacturing involving Samsung’s 4-nanometer process and work on next-generation high-bandwidth memory technologies.
Analysts said custom AI chips, or application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), are emerging as an alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units and could accelerate the diversification of the AI chip market.
However, they cautioned against interpreting increased competition as a sign of declining demand for memory semiconductors, particularly high-bandwidth memory (HBM).
Still, uncertainty remains about NVIDIA’s long-term product roadmap, given Huang’s central role in shaping the company’s business strategy and allocating resources.
SK Hynix, another major supplier to Nvidia, reversed earlier gains to close 3.03% lower on Friday.
Shinhan Securities said in a research note on the same day that investors initially ignored concerns about Nvidia’s management change and instead focused on the broader outlook for the AI industry.
South Korea’s Kospi also reversed its earlier gains on Friday. iM Securities said in a research note that the impact of NVIDIA’s leadership changes on the broader semiconductor sector is likely to be limited, pointing to gains in AMD and Broadcom shares in pre-U.S. trading and continued demand for investments in AI companies.
ASUS talks about Nvidia’s future
ASUS co-CEO SY Hsu told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” that while NVIDIA’s leadership change is unlikely to change its competitive advantage in the short term, the company will closely monitor the impact on product quality, service costs and delivery times.
“I don’t think the benefits of Nvidia’s products and overall AI ecosystem will change overnight,” Hsu said.
ASUS, which works with Nvidia across graphics cards and AI servers, has not yet spoken to interim CEO Colette Kress, Su said, adding that the company is seeking a meeting to better understand potential strategic changes.
In the long term, Hsu said, Huang will play a key role in accelerating innovation at Nvidia and its partners, and he will be watching to see if the company can maintain that pace without him.
