President Donald Trump has weighed in on who should be the next Nvidia CEO, and he says there is only one answer: Tim Cook. In a Truth Social post on Thursday, hours after Jensen Huang’s resignation was announced, Trump wrote that “there is only one man to take his place – TIM COOK of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!”

What Trump said about the next Nvidia CEO

Trump praised Huang as having “done a fantastic job” before pivoting to his preferred successor. None of the reports say whether Cook has any interest in the role, and Trump did not say he had spoken to him about it. Nvidia’s board has not publicly signaled that Cook is under consideration.

The endorsement fits a pattern. Trump has long praised Cook, calling him an “amazing manager and leader” and once crediting him for phoning the White House directly rather than hiring expensive consultants. When Apple announced Cook’s transition in April, Trump called him an “incredible guy” with an “almost incomparable” career. Cook has since stepped down after roughly 15 years as Apple’s chief executive and now serves as executive chairman of its board.

Why Huang’s departure is so unusual

Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and led it for more than three decades. His exit came after a turbulent week. On Sunday, he told staff in a note that he had been “unfaithful” to his wife of more than 40 years. “There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry,” he wrote.

That admission followed a New York Times report last month about his close relationship with a former executive at Megaspeed, an Nvidia customer. The report said US intelligence officials believe she was recruited to gather information for the Chinese government. Nvidia’s board then opened an independent investigation, led by a prominent Wall Street law firm. During it, the Times reported a second affair, with a senior Nvidia executive who reported directly to Huang.

The national security angle is what raises the stakes beyond a personal scandal. Nvidia’s chips sit at the center of the AI industry and of US-China tension over advanced semiconductors. Fox Business noted that no evidence has been publicly established that Huang disclosed confidential information, or that the woman obtained Nvidia secrets. The claims about her come from reports citing US officials, and she has not been convicted of anything.

What happens next for Nvidia

Nvidia has named Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent replacement. It is considering both internal and external candidates. Investors reacted with caution: Nvidia shares were down about 4.4 percent, to roughly $166, when Fox Business published its report.

For now, Trump’s post is best read as a public opinion, not a signal of what the board will do. Choosing a successor is the board’s job, and it is working through an investigation that has not yet concluded. Whether Cook, who has just handed Apple’s top job to someone else, would want to take on another, or whether Nvidia would want a leader from outside the chip world, is an open question. The next Nvidia CEO will inherit the company’s dominant position in AI hardware, along with the political and security scrutiny that now surrounds it.

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File photo: Tim Cook in New York City – 2026 (cropped).jpg by Dati Bendo / European Union, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Nvidia CEO resignation has jolted markets and left the world’s most closely watched chipmaker without the only chief executive it has ever had. Jensen Huang, who co-founded the company and steered it from a graphics-chip specialist to the centre of the AI boom, stepped down on Thursday after days of mounting pressure over his personal conduct and its possible national security implications.

At the London equity close, Nvidia shares were down 4.8%, though well above their earlier lows. The company’s market value slipped below $4 trillion for the first time since July 2025. Chief financial officer Colette Kress, in the job since September 2013, will keep her finance duties while serving as interim chief executive. The board has begun a search that will consider both internal and external candidates.

How the scandal unfolded

The sequence began about two weeks ago, when The New York Times reported that Huang had had an affair with a businesswoman from China who worked for Megaspeed, a Singapore-based Nvidia customer. US intelligence officials have reportedly identified her as a suspected Chinese intelligence asset. The reports said Megaspeed had been funnelling AI chips to China, which raised concerns about the security of sensitive information tied to US export restrictions on those chips.

On Sunday, Huang issued a statement admitting to the affair and apologising to his family, Nvidia’s employees and its shareholders. The board said the same day that it was hiring outside counsel to examine the espionage questions. It added that it had “no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised.” Those questions are reported rather than established, and the sources do not describe any finding of wrongdoing.

On Wednesday night the Times reported a second extramarital relationship, this time with a senior Nvidia executive who reported directly to him. The board met overnight, and the resignation was announced the next morning. Board chair Harvey Jones said the directors had “full confidence” in Kress and the leadership team, and expected operations, customer commitments and the product roadmap to continue “without interruption”.

Who could replace Huang?

Speculation about a successor started almost immediately. Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives praised Kress’s credibility inside and outside the company. He said he had long expected her to run a major public tech company, though he thought she would have to leave Nvidia to do it. He also said there was a good chance the board would look outside, naming Apple’s Tim Cook, who left the iPhone maker in September, as a “dark horse”.

President Donald Trump, who had stood by Huang through the controversy, went further. He posted that “there is only one man to take his place – Tim Cook of Apple. A Legend replaces a Legend!”

Morningstar’s Brian Colello noted that prediction markets are also pointing to Rene Haas, a former Nvidia vice president who now runs Arm Holdings, as a possible external pick. The internal names he mentioned alongside Kress were Ian Buck, who leads Nvidia’s AI efforts.

Wider markets stay resilient

The Nvidia CEO resignation did not drag broader indices down. London’s FTSE 100 closed up 0.3% at 10,863.09 after drifting into the red in the early afternoon, though the FTSE 250 edged down by 8.20 points and the AIM all-share lost 1.1%. Paris and Frankfurt both rose, and the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all higher around the London close.

The Nvidia news also competed with strong UK data. Monthly GDP rose 0.2% in September, against expectations of no growth, lifting growth in the three months to September to 0.7% from 0.5% in the second quarter. Deutsche Bank’s Sanjay Raja said that, excluding the pandemic years, the economy had not run this hot since 2017. He credited household spending, business investment, government spending and rapid growth in AI-related activity. Peel Hunt’s Kallum Pickering put annualised growth across the first three quarters of 2026 at about 2.4%, well above his 1.8% estimate of potential.

Elsewhere, sterling slipped to $1.3233 from $1.3284 a day earlier. The US 10-year Treasury yield rose to 5.08%, from 5.00% on Tuesday.

For now, the immediate market reaction to the Nvidia CEO resignation looks like a sharp but contained repricing of leadership risk. The harder questions are for the board: who can succeed the face of the AI boom, and what the outside counsel review will find. Nvidia’s central place in the AI industry means both answers will be watched well beyond its own share price.

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File photo: Jen-Hsun Huang 2025.jpg by The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Nvidia investigation into chief executive Jensen Huang’s relationship with an alleged Chinese spy has been handed to one of Wall Street’s most powerful law firms, as the world’s second most valuable company tries to contain a scandal that has erased hundreds of billions of dollars from its market value.

Nvidia said it had appointed New York firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to carry out what it called a “thorough and independent” review. The work will be led by partner Joon Kim, a former acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose practice covers internal investigations, white-collar defence and crisis management. Nvidia has given no timeline, but says Huang will keep running the company he co-founded “without interruption”.

What the Nvidia investigation is examining

At its centre is Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, who is not related to him. She was an executive at Singapore-based Megaspeed, a customer of Nvidia, and is alleged to be a spy for Beijing. Megaspeed had previously been suspected of helping divert Nvidia chips to China. Nvidia says it looked into that concern and found it unsupported, and that the US government never told it Megaspeed posed an intelligence risk.

The company first denied an improper relationship, then reversed course. On Sunday Huang acknowledged he had been unfaithful to his wife, although according to the Guardian he did not refer directly to Ms Huang. The same day, Nvidia’s board announced a probe into reports that he had been the target of a foreign intelligence effort. A committee of independent directors will oversee it, and the board says it has no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised.

The New York Times reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio circulated a memo earlier this year warning officials about the relationship. President Donald Trump said Huang told him he had “no idea she was a spy”, and that he believed him. Beijing has dismissed the allegations as an attempt to “smear and malign China”.

Political and market pressure builds

Nvidia is not the only party asking questions. The FBI is running its own inquiry, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs has asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing next week. The committee can issue a subpoena if it chooses. Huang has not said whether he will attend. Nvidia declined to say whether he has hired personal lawyers, and it is unclear whether Wachtell will be able to speak to Alice Huang at all.

The stakes extend beyond one executive’s conduct. Nvidia is the sole maker of a chip used in AI tools, and US officials treat its products as a national security matter. David Perdue, the US ambassador to China, said the episode was “another reminder that we have to stay diligent”, adding that “economic security is national security”.

The market reaction has been sharp, though the figures vary with timing. The BBC reported about $500bn wiped from Nvidia’s value since Friday, leaving shares near a yearly low. By Wednesday, the Guardian said, shares had bounced 3.8% to $175.34 in early trading, narrowing the loss since Friday to $272bn. That rebound came alongside a wider lift for AI stocks after strong results from CoreWeave. Even after it, the company is valued at about $4.1tn.

Why Wachtell?

Wachtell is among the most prestigious and profitable law firms in the US. Its clients include OpenAI and Salesforce, and it advised the Treasury during the 2008 takeovers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Kim’s record as a prosecutor overseeing fraud, corruption and cybercrime cases gives the review credibility with regulators and investors. Sources told the BBC the Nvidia investigation will likely be treated as urgent, given how closely Huang’s public image is tied to the company’s.

For now, the facts are still limited to allegations and admissions. Huang has acknowledged infidelity, but no findings have been made about espionage, and Nvidia says nothing indicates its secrets were compromised. What Wachtell, the FBI and Congress each conclude is likely to determine whether Huang’s role, and investor confidence, survive intact.

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File photo: Jen-Hsun Huang 2025.jpg by The White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Gemini on CarPlay is officially here. Google announced on November 11 that its standalone Gemini app is rolling out to Apple’s in-car platform worldwide, bringing the full Gemini Live voice conversation experience to the dashboard. It covers all Gemini users on iOS and every language Gemini Live supports. Because the rollout is staged, the update may take a few days to show up on every phone.

What changes for drivers

CarPlay owners could already reach Gemini through Google Maps, but that integration was limited. The new app is a more complete version of the chatbot. Tap the Gemini icon on the CarPlay display and you can start a fresh conversation or continue a recent one. Conversations sync with the Gemini app on your iPhone and stay in your chat history. You could begin a chat while leaving the house, carry on during the drive, and read the thread on your phone when you arrive.

Google’s suggested uses are mostly about turning commute time into prep time. Drivers can rehearse for a meeting, go through unread emails, get summaries of long threads, or talk through a reply by voice. They can also hear their Daily Brief, which draws on Workspace tools such as Gmail and Google Calendar, or ask for recommendations for places nearby. As on the phone, the conversation is free-flowing, so you can interrupt, ask follow-ups or change topics without starting over.

What it doesn’t do

Android Authority points out a clear limit. The integration does not give Gemini deep device-level permissions, so it won’t change your music, adjust the climate controls or operate other CarPlay apps. This is a conversational assistant, not a replacement for controlling the car. Anyone expecting it to rival Siri’s system-level reach should adjust expectations.

Catching up to the competition

The launch fills a notable gap. According to 9to5Mac, Gemini was the last major AI chatbot without a CarPlay app of its own. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Meta AI and Grok all already support the platform. 9to5Mac also notes that Siri gets a standalone app in iOS 27, which supports CarPlay as well. Android Authority’s headline says Google is “catching up to rivals, finally,” and the late arrival is hard to ignore given how many alternatives drivers already had.

Engadget describes the move as part of a broader push to put Gemini on as many screens and speakers as possible. It follows Google enabling a personalization feature on Android Auto that can use details from other Google apps. Google is also bringing that feature to cars with Google built-in. The company is clearly treating the car as a major place for its assistant, on both Apple’s and its own platforms.

How to get Gemini on CarPlay

No separate download is needed. Google’s setup steps are:

• Update the Gemini app on your iPhone to the latest version.
• Turn on microphone permissions for the app.
• Use Gemini Live on your phone at least once.
• Connect your phone to your car and tap the Gemini icon on the CarPlay display.

Early reports suggest patience may be needed. At the time of writing, Android Authority and 9to5Mac both said the update had not yet reached their devices, though Google says the rollout starts today. If the icon isn’t there yet, checking for app updates over the next few days is the best bet. Once it arrives, Gemini on CarPlay gives iPhone users a hands-free way to continue the same conversations they have on their phones, within the limits above.

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File photo: 2023 Volkswagen ID.4 running wireless CarPlay.jpg by Sunnyboy122, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The cancellation of Web Summit Day 2 leaves tens of thousands of tech professionals with an unexpected gap in their week, after Portugal’s government advised organisers that Wednesday’s programme in Lisbon should not go ahead because of Storm Charles.

The conference, one of the largest technology gatherings in the world, is scheduled to run from 9 to 12 November. Business Insider puts its attendance at more than 70,000 people from over 150 countries. Organisers informed attendees by email on Tuesday evening that Wednesday 11 November would not take place.

Why the government stepped in

According to the organisers’ message, the government’s advice cited three concerns: tidal flooding, severe disruption to public transport, and the effect of high winds on external structures. That last point matters for an event that relies on large temporary installations. The advice followed discussions with the national civil protection authority, ANEPC, and the Public Security Police, known as the PSP.

Web Summit said it would respect the government’s direction. “The safety and security of our attendees, staff and contractors is always our absolute priority,” the team wrote.

A wider state of alert across Portugal

The decision did not come out of nowhere. Earlier on Tuesday, Lisbon mayor Carlos Moedas said “everything indicates” the event could not run on Wednesday, according to The Irish Times, as relayed by The Next Web. He reportedly put the number of people at the venue in Parque das Nações at more than 60,000.

The Portugal News reported that the government declared a state of alert across mainland Portugal for Wednesday. Schools and non-essential public services are due to close. Lisbon plans to shut its tunnels, parks, gardens and cultural venues from midnight. The national weather service, IPMA, forecast gusts of up to 120km/h. Against that backdrop, holding a mass-attendance conference would have meant moving huge crowds through a city whose transport network was expected to be struggling.

What happens on Thursday

Organisers say they aim to proceed with Day 3 on Thursday 12 November as planned, once Storm Charles has passed. That is an intention rather than a guarantee. The company said it will keep working with the authorities and emergency services, monitor conditions, and issue further updates as confirmed information becomes available. It added that it will contact affected people directly.

Several questions remain open in the sources. Neither says whether any Wednesday sessions will be rescheduled or moved online, or how the loss of a full day will affect exhibitors, startups and investors who built their schedules around it. Attendees will have to wait for those details from the organisers.

For now, the practical message is simple. Web Summit Day 2 will not happen, Thursday is the target for resuming, and anyone in Lisbon should expect disruption while the state of alert is in force and follow official guidance as the storm passes.

File photo: Web Summit 2017 – Registration and Arrival COD 1309 (24341345918).jpg by Web Summit, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Spotify AI DJ is getting its biggest personalization update since it debuted in 2023: nine new voices with distinct personalities, and a setting that strips out most of the talking. The changes began rolling out on November 10 to Premium subscribers in every market where the feature is already available.

Nine voices, each with its own attitude

Spotify is adding seven English-language voices and two in Spanish. The English lineup covers British, American, Irish, Australian and Indian accents, and each host gets a name and a temperament. Among the three American options, Casey is laid-back and warm, Tess is direct with “a bit of an edge,” and Lane brings a Southern accent and youthful energy. Australian host Sam is described as gregarious and not-so-serious.

The Spanish additions are Nico, who is down-to-earth, and Fabi, who is witty and friendly. Engadget and CNET both describe the two as Mexican-accented. They replace the earlier Spanish voice, Livi, so Spanish-speaking listeners lose that option. The original English voice, known as “X” and based on recordings of a real Spotify employee, stays.

Turning down the talk

The second change may matter more to some listeners. Until now, the defining trait of the Spotify AI DJ was its running commentary: explaining why it picked a set of songs and what ties them together. A new toggle limits that to brief acknowledgments. According to the reports, you will still hear a short line when the session starts, and when you ask the DJ to change direction or turn it off.

Spotify frames this as a way to win back moments when people would normally pick a static playlist, such as a dinner party or a gathering where music should stay in the background. CNET’s reviewer was less convinced, noting that without the announcer it could be hard to tell a DJ mix from a plain shuffled one.

Why the update matters

The timing reflects how popular the feature has become. TechCrunch reports that more than 94 million Premium listeners use the DJ, which makes it one of Spotify’s most successful AI products. Since launch, the company has layered on conversational AI chat, prompt-based recommendation tuning, AI playlist creation and integrations with third-party assistants like ChatGPT and Claude. Letting users choose a voice and a talkativeness level borrows from the personalization options common in AI assistants, and it is a sign Spotify sees the DJ as a product to refine rather than a finished novelty.

The DJ is supported in more than 95 markets, in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. The new voices cover only English and Spanish for now.

How to find the new settings

To change your host, search for “DJ” in the Spotify mobile app, then tap the three-dot menu to pick a voice and set the commentary level. While the DJ is playing, tapping the DJ button again lets you shift the genre, artist, mood or recommendations. Premium plans start at about $13 a month, according to CNET.

For listeners who found the original patter either charming or grating, the Spotify AI DJ now offers a choice between a character with opinions and something close to a quiet radio station.

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File photo: Spotify, King’s Cross Railway Station.JPG by Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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David Ellison, chief executive of Paramount Skydance, told investors this week that artificial intelligence “really has the potential to be the biggest creative unlock in modern history.” The remark came during his first earnings call leading a combined Paramount and Warner Bros., and it set out how the new studio giant plans to use the technology while courting an industry wary of it.

Ellison’s CGI comparison

Ellison placed AI in the lineage of the early-1990s shift to CGI and digital compositing. That era, he said, produced films such as Jurassic Park and Terminator 2, and he finds it “hard to imagine” AI won’t have a bigger effect. His argument is mostly about economics. The original Terminator, he noted, was made in 1983 for about $4 million, while a shot-for-shot remake today would cost $60 to $70 million.

That gap, in his telling, is why studios take so few risks on original ideas. If AI tools make budgets “more digestible,” he said, studios can afford to bet on new stories. It is a pitch aimed at creative anxiety as much as at spreadsheets, though it is a claim about the future, not a result anyone has yet demonstrated.

A tech pitch with a hand-crafted caveat

Ellison also tried to reassure artists. He said “in a world of AI slop” there will always be a premium for truly hand-crafted storytelling, and that AI is “a tool for artists” that “will never be a replacement for them.” The Hollywood Reporter called this a “two-step” that isn’t easy to pull off, since AI is widely viewed as a threat to traditional production workflows even as it is increasingly adopted. It pointed to Ben Affleck’s VFX firm, which has reportedly helped Netflix use AI on more than 300 titles.

Ellison argued that premium franchise IP and live events become more valuable, not less, in an age of cheap synthetic content. He described a portfolio of roughly 40 billion-dollar franchises as a moat, serving more than 203 million subscribers across a soon-to-be-merged Paramount+ and HBO Max. The Verge reported that the bundle is slated for “early 2027.”

The cost-cutting subtext

The enthusiasm for the biggest creative unlock in modern history sits alongside hard financial targets. The company plans to spend about $30 billion a year on content, from HBO dramas to CBS procedurals, MTV reality shows and NFL rights. It is also looking for roughly $6 billion in cost synergies from the merger. Those savings are expected to come from overlapping corporate overhead, real estate and facilities, consolidated back-office functions, and AI workflows scaled across the combined company.

Ellison called merging the two streaming services within a year an “ambitious target” that is “possible because of the latest tools in artificial intelligence.” He said the company has been developing its own AI tools and that, as a result, “content will be easier to produce, projects across the organization will speed up, and how we work will transform.”

Ellison is also the heir to Oracle’s AI-linked fortune, a background the Hollywood Reporter said is central to his effort to rebrand legacy studios as technology-driven businesses. He has an ally in Terminator director James Cameron, whose Lightstorm company bought an AI-driven 3D post-production firm in September.

What to watch

Related coverage notes that James Gunn is out as DC movie leader and that Skydance’s games division is laying off staff, so the studio is already restructuring. How much of the promised savings come from automation, and what that means for the people who build sets, work as extras and finish visual effects, is the open question. Ellison’s claim that AI will be the biggest creative unlock in modern history is a bet. The first evidence will be whether cheaper production produces the bolder original films he describes, or simply a leaner cost base.

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Meta is extending its AI age checks to Instagram users around the world, using automated estimation to find teenagers who signed up with an adult birthdate and move them into restricted Teen Accounts. The expansion, announced on November 9, widens a system that until now covered a limited set of markets.

How the AI age checks work

The technology looks for signals that an account belongs to someone aged 13 to 17. If it concludes that is likely, the account is moved into a Teen Account regardless of the age the user entered. Those accounts make profiles and posts private by default, block strangers from messaging teens, apply daily time limits and offer parental controls. Teen Accounts also exist on Facebook and Messenger.

The rollout has been gradual. The sources differ slightly on the earliest markets: one lists the US, UK, Canada and Australia, the other the US, EU and Brazil. They agree on the broad pattern of staged expansion, with the EU’s 27 member states and Brazil added in May. Facebook is still being rolled out, and Threads is due to follow later this year.

Engadget also corrected its original report. Methods such as analyzing bone structure in photos, or scanning for mentions of school grades and birthday celebrations, are used to find and remove children under 13, Meta told the outlet. They are not part of the process for placing teens in Teen Accounts.

Apple’s signal and the push on app stores

In Australia, Meta has begun using Apple’s age-range signal as an extra check. Parents can ask the App Store to verify a child’s age, and Apple then shares an age range with apps such as Instagram when a teenager downloads them. In the US, parents will also start seeing a video in their Instagram feeds explaining how teens are placed into age-appropriate settings and how they can help confirm a child’s age.

The Apple integration fits Meta’s long-running lobbying position. The company supports laws that would require app stores to verify ages and obtain parental consent, arguing that one verified signal shared across all apps is more effective and more private than every platform running its own checks. It has urged TikTok and YouTube to take the same approach. The position also shifts some responsibility for age verification onto Apple and Google.

The legal backdrop

The timing is hard to separate from the litigation. In August, Meta agreed to settlements worth up to $18bn with 52 attorneys general. As part of that deal it said it would invest in stronger technology to catch accounts that may belong to children under 13 and to identify 13- to 17-year-olds. Last month it settled a teenager’s case in a Los Angeles trial over claims that Instagram and Facebook were designed to be addictive. Earlier this year, a New Mexico jury found Meta liable for failing to protect children from predators on its platforms and ordered it to pay $375m.

The sources do not say how accurate the system is, how many accounts it has moved, or whether users can easily contest a wrong estimate. Those questions will probably decide whether the AI age checks satisfy regulators, parents and the courts, or simply invite the next round of scrutiny.

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File photo: Meta (Facebook) campus in Bellevue, Washington.jpg by Exilexi, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Nvidia shares tumbled on Wall Street on Monday, falling about 8% at one point and shedding more than $300 billion (£222 billion) in market value, after the company’s board opened an investigation into reports that chief executive Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

The stock recovered some ground during the session and settled about 4% lower. Even so, the sell-off was a stark reminder of how much of the market now rests on a single company.

What triggered the sell-off in Nvidia shares

Nvidia announced the board investigation on Sunday, after Mr Huang admitted to having an affair with a business executive. In an open letter posted on the company’s website, he apologised to his wife and to Nvidia.

The New York Times reported that US intelligence had concluded the woman, a former executive at Singapore-based data centre firm Megaspeed International, was gathering information on behalf of Beijing. Those claims are allegations, and the sources do not say the US government or Nvidia has confirmed them. Nor do they say Mr Huang himself is accused of wrongdoing beyond the affair he has admitted. The board’s inquiry is focused on reports that he was targeted.

China rejected the claims on Monday, calling them unsubstantiated and part of a smear campaign against Beijing.

Why the stakes are higher than one executive

The timing is awkward for the chipmaker. Its stock reached an all-time high only last month, driven by the AI boom, and it ranks alongside Apple and Microsoft among the world’s most valuable listed companies. Its chips power many of the data centres and systems used to train and run AI models.

China adds another sensitivity. Nvidia’s chip sales there have at times drawn the attention of US regulators trying to limit Beijing’s access to advanced technology. A story that links the company’s leader to alleged Chinese intelligence activity lands in an already politically charged area.

Analysts split on what comes next

Market commentators disagreed over how far the damage could spread. Neil Wilson, investor strategist at Saxo UK, said Nvidia sits so close to the heart of the AI supply chain that its fortunes matter to the wider market. He warned the story could hit sentiment that is “already pretty fragile”. Tech stocks fell sharply at the end of last week before rallying on Friday, and Mr Wilson said he did not think the lows had been found yet. He described the situation as “a bubble deflating” over many months rather than a bursting.

Amish Patel, head of equity research at Raymond James, took a more measured view. He said underlying demand for AI computing power remains “exceptionally strong”, and that limits on power and data-centre capacity are not going away. But he acknowledged that risks have risen, pointing to a tougher political debate in the US over data-centre development and the “additional uncertainty” now surrounding Nvidia.

For investors, the key questions are what the board’s investigation finds and whether any US authorities respond. Until then, Nvidia shares are likely to stay sensitive to each new development, and so, given the company’s weight in the AI trade, may the sector as a whole.

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File photo: Director Lê Nguyễn Thiên Nga and NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang.jpg by VQTCS, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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France has formally accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of carrying out a supermarket fridge cyberattack that spoiled food and caused fires at stores across the country. It is one of the most direct public attributions yet in a conflict that has so far played out largely in scattered, hard-to-trace digital incidents.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot made the announcement on Monday. “I can confirm that this attack was carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he said. He added that the Iranian ambassador had been summoned and that sanctions against Tehran would be pursued at “a European level”.

Arrest warrants requested

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it has requested international arrest warrants for the head of Shahid Kaveh, an offensive cyber unit affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, and for his two deputies. These are allegations and requests at this stage. No court has ruled on them, and no one has been convicted.

Barrot described the operation as “unprecedented in its level of aggression” and called it the first large-scale cyberattack for sabotage purposes on French soil. “It will not go unanswered,” he said, promising “proportionate and necessary” measures, public or private, to deter anyone considering a repeat.

Investigators say the attackers used Farsi and IP addresses linked to devices in Iran. According to the account given to reporters, they reached the refrigeration systems over the internet and remotely pushed temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) overnight on 11 and 12 October. Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment. Iran routinely denies carrying out malicious cyber operations.

Fires, spoiled stock and a heavy bill

The physical damage was considerable. In some stores the heat melted equipment or set it alight. Staff were photographed hauling spoiled meat and melted ice cream into large waste containers. Retailers put the losses in the millions of euros, and one supermarket owner estimated that the nationwide cost of the supermarket fridge cyberattack could reach tens of millions.

Several of the country’s biggest grocery groups were affected. At least 300 Intermarché stores and its Netto brand were hit. Coopérative U said more than 100 of its supermarkets were targeted, Carrefour put its figure at 80, and Monoprix said about 5 percent of its roughly 490 stores were affected. E.Leclerc was also hit.

Cybersecurity experts told Reuters the intrusion appeared easy to pull off. The company behind many of the affected units said several were obsolete or running outdated firmware, which may have made them simple to break into. The case shows how ordinary connected equipment can become a lever for physical sabotage.

A second wave and a possible US link

The trouble did not stop in France. On 2 November, supermarkets in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden reported overnight temperature spikes. Reuters reported that more than 100 establishments across Europe were affected in this second wave, including refrigerators used by French blood banks. Staff there had to move some of the blood to other cold storage. Dozens of stores and a food distribution hub were among the sites hit.

A similar incident preceded the European attacks in the United States. In August, refrigerators in at least half a dozen military commissaries failed. Pentagon investigators are treating that as a suspected cyberattack and are working with French officials, Reuters reported. A person familiar with the matter said the Pentagon considers Iran a suspect, but the investigation is ongoing. Reuters could not establish how that conclusion was reached, whether other suspects are being examined, or whether the US, French and wider European incidents are formally linked. The Pentagon said it was aware of “speculation regarding a potential cyber incident” but declined to comment further for security reasons.

The accusation comes against the backdrop of the war involving the United States and Iran that began in February. That conflict has seen alleged digital disruption of a Los Angeles transit system in March, US water treatment plants in July and US-bound ships in August. France’s move puts an official name and a unit behind one of the most disruptive episodes, while the threat of EU sanctions suggests the response will be diplomatic and legal rather than digital. Whether Tehran will answer the allegations, or whether any suspect will ever face a courtroom, remains unclear.