Nvidia and AMD chiefs join Tsinghua board as auto chip supply tightens

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang and AMD chief Lisa Su joined the advisory board of Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management, the school said in a post on its official social media channel on Tuesday. South China Morning Post reported the appointments on 29 September, adding that Marc Pictet, senior managing partner of Swiss wealth and asset manager Pictet Group, was the third new member.

The school described Nvidia as a company that "invented graphic processing units" and "ushered in the modern AI era", and said Su had "transformed AMD into a leading high-performance and adaptive computing firm". The timing is awkward. Both executives had attended a White House state dinner during President Xi Jinping's state visit to Washington the previous week, according to the same SCMP report, which noted that the appointments place the two US AI chip leaders in a forum known for connecting global executives with senior Chinese officials. Washington and Beijing remain at odds over advanced chip exports, and the advisory board seat does not change export controls. But it does put the two people who decide where the most advanced AI accelerators get built into a room with Chinese policymakers.

Why this matters to carmakers

Automotive is no longer a side market for chip designers, and the supply chain pressure runs in both directions. General Motors locked in a Micron chip deal and a $4.5 billion parts reserve to shield production from automotive memory supply pressure, according to a report dated 19 September.

That figure is the clearest signal yet of how far an automaker will go to insure itself against shortages it cannot control. The same reporting noted that new cars sold with large touchscreens and lane-keeping alerts carry a key memory chip whose price has risen up to 70 percent this year, and that shoppers face a growing risk of longer waits. Memory is the pinch point. MaxLinear's new Puma 9 DOCSIS chip, announced on 29 September, is a broadband part rather than an automotive one, but its design choices read like a case study in how chipmakers are responding to the same shortage. Light Reading reported that the Puma 9 supports DDR5 as well as DDR4 memory specifically to reduce supply risk, quoting Puneet Sethi, SVP and GM of MaxLinear's network infrastructure and carrier business unit: "As manufacturers are incentivized to move their capacity to DDR5, we think the DDR5 ecosystem and pricing and supply will become more relaxed than the stress that we see with DDR4." Jeff Heynen, VP of broadband access and home networking at Dell'Oro Group, told Light Reading that most vendors will move to DDR5 for more advanced Wi-Fi 8 units because of the additional onboard memory that apps and diagnostic features require.

That is the same logic automakers are applying to infotainment and ADAS modules, where DDR4 parts have been hardest to secure. A separate report on 20 September linked the 70 percent price rise directly to the memory chips inside big touchscreens and driver assistance systems. The dossier does not give a unit cost, so the absolute impact on a vehicle bill of materials cannot be calculated from these sources. What can be said is that the direction is one way.

The China angle

Chinese automakers and their suppliers are responding by building their own silicon, and the dossier shows the pace. Li Auto spun out its chip and silicon carbide businesses to target outside customers, according to a report dated 21 September, and confirmed external supply of chips and SiC modules on the same day, with Nio, XPeng, Li Auto and Leapmotor all entering the auto parts arena to challenge Bosch and Huawei.

A further report on 21 September said Li Auto is seeking outside funding for its chip unit at a $2.2 billion valuation. Li Xiang, the company's founder, pushed back on a "de-CATL" narrative on 28 September, arguing that self-development is deep collaboration with suppliers rather than confrontation, according to finance.biggo.com. Those moves matter beyond China. The xEV power chip market is forecast to reach $30.52 billion by 2035 as SiC and 800 V EV platforms accelerate, according to TimesTech on 29 September. Qualcomm won a BMW chip supply deal for future vehicle platforms on 29 July, a reminder that the incumbent automotive chip suppliers face competition from consumer silicon vendors with far deeper balance sheets. China's auto industry profit fell 16 percent in the first eight months of 2026 with margins at 3.6 percent, according to eletric-vehicles.com on 28 September, which makes the cost of every chip in the bill of materials harder to absorb. Nio turned profitable after years of losses, KrASIA reported on 29 September, but the wider sector is not in a position to pay whatever memory suppliers ask.

Western automakers are also eyeing defence work as a way to offset slowing consumer demand, ET Manufacturing reported on 28 September, an option that does not solve the chip problem but may change the volumes and specifications they order. LG Uplus is expanding its manufacturing data business with Catena-X, thelec.net reported on 29 September, part of a broader push to make supply chain data more transparent across tiers.

The Philippines test case

Nowhere is the gap between electrification targets and component supply clearer than in the Philippines. CleanTechnica published an op-ed on 29 September ahead of the 14th Philippine Electric Vehicle Summit, which opens in October in Manila. The piece, by Raymond Tribdino, describes the summit as an operational audit of the Department of Energy's Comprehensive Roadmap for the Electric Vehicle Industry, known as CREVI, codified under the Electric Vehicle Industry Development Act, or EVIDA, Republic Act 11697. The short-term target is 311,700 electric vehicles registered and 7,300 dedicated charging stations nationwide by 2028, heading toward 50 percent fleet electrification by 2040.

With the 2028 deadline two years away, the numbers look hard. The op-ed argues the target cannot be met through private passenger car sales alone, because premium electric SUVs and executive sedans are priced for affluent households in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu, while volume lives in two-wheelers, three-wheelers, delivery vans and modernised public utility vehicles. Organisers led by the Electric Vehicle Association of the Philippines have changed the exhibitor balance accordingly, with commercial fleet suppliers, light delivery vehicle builders such as NWOW International, and heavy transport fabricators such as Pioneer Trucks alongside Toyota Motor Philippines, Nissan Philippines and ACMobility. Under the development act, government agencies and commercial cargo operators must ensure electric vehicles make up at least 5 percent of their operational fleets.

The roadmap's call for 7,300 charging stations by 2028 remains the most fragile link in the transition.

That is the op-ed's assessment, and the dossier does not carry a current charging point count to confirm or refute it. CleanTechnica's text cuts off mid-sentence with the words "as of mid-2026, the count", so the figure is unavailable here. What the piece does establish is that a vehicle target without a grid is meaningless, which is the same lesson automakers are learning about chip targets without second sources.

The common thread across Manila, Detroit and Beijing is that electrification and automation both increase semiconductor content per vehicle, while the supply base for the memory and power chips involved is concentrated and tight. GM's $4.5 billion reserve, Li Auto's $2.2 billion chip unit valuation and the Philippine 2028 targets are three different responses to the same constraint. None of them is a fix on its own.