没有黄仁勋的人工智能热潮将检验一个严酷的现实：即便科技界对英伟达芯片的依赖已有所减轻，但它对英伟达支票簿的依赖依然很高。
The AI boom without Jensen Huang will test a hard truth: Even if the tech world has grown somewhat less reliant on Nvidia's chips, it remains highly dependent on its checkbook.
为什么这很重要随着竞争对手芯片的成熟以及近期软件领域的突破，科技生态系统实现了一年前看似不可能的事情：绕过英伟达的可行路径。
Why it matters With rival chips maturing and recent software breakthroughs, the tech ecosystem has achieved what would've seemed impossible a year ago: a viable path around Nvidia.
- 但要找到一位愿意资助初创公司、为数十亿美元云债务提供担保并积极资助人工智能巨头竞争对手的CEO，其难度要大得多。
• But replacing a CEO willing to bankroll startups, backstop billions in cloud debt and aggressively fund rivals to the AI giants will be much harder. The big picture
宏观背景没有黄仁勋的下一个篇章将更加谨慎，但由于以下两个关键原因，行业有能力消化这一变化：
The next chapter without Huang will be more cautious, but the industry is capable of absorbing the change, for two key reasons: New chips
新芯片半导体竞争已变得更加难以遏制。
Semiconductor competition has become harder to contain.
- 在OpenAI和其他初创公司中，长期以来流传着这样一个笑话：获得英伟达芯片折扣的最佳方式，就是公开与谷歌或其他公司讨论替代方案。黄仁勋通常会热情地介入，急于锁定客户。
• At OpenAI and other startups, a longstanding joke was that the best way to get a discount on Nvidia chips was to openly talk to Google or others about alternatives. Huang would often swoop in enthusiastically, eager to lock in a customer.
- 来自谷歌、亚马逊、微软和OpenAI的定制芯片所取得的进展，以及与博通和英伟达竞争对手AMD达成的新协议，让这些对话有了更实质的内容。客户拥有了选择权，并且拥有了前所未有的议价能力。
• The progress of custom chips from Google, Amazon, Microsoft and OpenAI, as well as new deals with Broadcom and Nvidia rival AMD, gives those conversations more substance. Customers have options, and far more leverage than ever.
- 人工智能本身也使这些产品更容易使用。Anthropic表示，其Mythos模型帮助在AMD芯片上运行某些工作负载仅用了大约三天时间，而过去则需要六到十二个月。
• AI itself has also made those offerings easier to use. Anthropic says its Mythos model helped run certain workloads on AMD chips in about three days, compared with six to 12 months in the past.
华盛顿在华盛顿，对华鹰派正处于上升势头。黄仁勋的离职加强了行政部门力量、部分议员以及Anthropic等一直推动对芯片销售实施更严格控制的公司的呼声。
Washington In DC, China hawks are ascendant. Huang's departure strengthens calls from administration forces, some lawmakers, and companies such as Anthropic that have pushed for tighter controls on chip sales.
- 相关立法正在迅速推进，以堵住漏洞并加强对华先进芯片销售的出口限制，据报道，商务部正在筹备限制此类访问的其他途径。
• Legislation is rapidly advancing to cut off loopholes and strengthen export restrictions for advanced chip sales to China, and the Commerce Department is reportedly preparing additional ways to limit such access.
- 切断这些途径有助于巩固美国的领先地位，并为Anthropic和OpenAI带来重大的首次公开募股（IPO）前助力。
• Cutting off those routes could help protect America's lead and offer a major pre-IPO boost to Anthropic and OpenAI. Reality check
现实检验替代芯片和软件的飞跃无法解决人工智能领域所有大玩家当前面临的近期计算危机。
Alternative chips and leaps forward in software won't solve the near-term computing crunch that all the big players in AI are facing.
- 英伟达的芯片依然最受追捧，因为它们获得最广泛的支持，这使得它们对业内规模较小的玩家至关重要，对于那些需要从所建每个数据中心获得最大效率的大公司来说也很重要。
• Nvidia's chips remain the most sought-after because they are the most widely supported, making them critical for the industry's smaller players and important for the big companies who need maximum efficiency out of each data center they build.
有两个原因说明一个强大的英伟达仍然必不可少：
There are two reasons a strong Nvidia still remains essential:
金融这家公司的支票簿将比其计算能力更难复制。
Finance The company's checkbook will be far more difficult to replicate than its computing power.
- 数据公司SemiAnalysis的数据显示，英伟达已经做出了5300亿美元的资产负债表外承诺和担保，包括购买内存以及为数据中心和建设这些数据中心的某些公司提供担保。
• Nvidia has made $530 billion of off-balance-sheet commitments and guarantees, including to buy memory and backstops for data centers and certain companies building them, according to data firm SemiAnalysis.
- 较小的云服务商（通常被称为新兴云厂商），以及世界各地的众多初创公司，可能已经失去了他们最热心的支持者。
• Smaller cloud providers, often called neoclouds, as well as a vast array of startups all over the world, have lost perhaps their most enthusiastic champion.
- 英伟达将继续成为一个强大的竞争对手，但它在初创公司资助、收购和担保方面几乎肯定会变得不那么激进，从而缓和其在机构投资者中分散风险的努力，一些批评人士曾称这些努力类似于抵押贷款泡沫。
• Nvidia will remain a formidable competitor, but it will almost certainly become less aggressive about startup funding, acquisitions and backstops, tempering its efforts to spread exposure among institutional investors in ways that some critics said resembled the mortgage bubble. Open models
开源模型英伟达一直是西方开源模型生态系统最热心的资助者和支持者——为开发者提供了比前沿人工智能公司昂贵产品更便宜的替代方案。
Nvidia has been the most enthusiastic funder and champion of the Western open-model ecosystem—giving developers cheaper alternatives to the expensive offerings from frontier AI companies.
- 其对Hugging Face即将进行的收购、与模型开发者Poolside的许可协议、对Reflection的支持以及对Nemotron系列开源模型的开发，早已超出了芯片销售的范畴。
• Its pending acquisition of Hugging Face, licensing agreement with model-developer Poolside, backing of Reflection and development of the Nemotron family of open models extend well beyond chip sales.
- 没有了英伟达，目前尚不清楚美国是否能够开发出能够与中国抗衡的开源权重替代方案，因为由于这些系统通常可以免费下载，许多方案并没有清晰或简单的财务回报路径。
• Without Nvidia, it's not clear whether the U.S. will be able to develop open-weight alternatives to China, since many don't have a clear or easy path to financial returns given that such systems are often free to download. What we're watching
我们在关注什么行业对芯片日益增强的选择自由度，能否弥补英伟达突然变得不那么愿意为其雄心提供资金的损失。
Whether the industry's growing freedom to choose its chips can compensate for an Nvidia that is suddenly much less willing to finance its ambitions.
结论：黄仁勋的离职不会阻碍美国的人工智能雄心。但它在生态系统中留下了一个缺口，这个缺口将比任何英伟达芯片的短缺都更难填补。
Bottom line: Huang's departure won't derail America's AI ambitions. But it leaves a hole in the ecosystem that will be harder to fill than any shortage of Nvidia chips.