Nvidia has opened an internal investigation into Jensen Huang for his relationship with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, identified by US secret services as a possible espionage asset, and the case has already put Donald Trump in an awkward position.
The Santa Clara-based company confirmed that its CEO is under review as the scandal grows around an alleged plot linked to China; at the same time, the president publicly backed the executive after it was announced that Nvidia would create a committee to analyze the situation.
The investigation, according to Nvidia's statement, has not yet established that the woman accessed confidential information or that there was a leak of trade secrets.
Suspicion lasted almost a year and the report did not stop the link
Intelligence that reached Washington suspected that Alice Huang would be a key piece for China to access Nvidia's most advanced chips. The New York Times also reported that the CEO was seen by secret services as a target of a Chinese espionage plot.
The secret services informed Trump of the investigation almost a year ago, but he chose not to intervene. "I haven't heard that he's done anything wrong," Trump said, adding: "He's an honorable guy. I think he probably has an excuse for it."
Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had warned on several occasions about Huang's relationship and personally oversaw a classified report that alerted senior officials last spring. However, the case's progress accelerated now, on the eve of the midterms, when Democrats achieved a broad victory that allowed them control of both chambers.
In parallel, Department of Commerce officials had long suspected that Alice Huang was helping Beijing circumvent the US technology embargo to access next-generation chips. The investigation linked her network to Megaspeed, a Singaporean company allegedly involved in a smuggling plot, and Singapore initiated its own investigation before closing the file.
Trump backs him, while doubts grow about what was known and about exports
Trump has continued to treat Huang as a trusted advisor on artificial intelligence and has received him several times at the White House. On Sunday, upon learning of the public investigation, he insisted that Jensen Huang "has done an extraordinary job for our country" and defended that he should remain at the helm of Nvidia.
Both speak on the phone frequently, according to sources cited in the available information. The president often consults him for his vision on AI, and Nvidia executives have also indicated that Huang received other calls from Trump during board meetings.
The secret services and officials who participated in the investigation believe that Jensen Huang was unaware of his lover's hidden interest, according to the American newspaper; even so, a group of Republican congressmen sent a letter to the White House last week demanding explanations, without receiving a response.
Trump, furthermore, kept the executive close despite warnings: he publicly supported him, invited him to the gala dinner during Xi Jinping's visit to Washington, and accompanied Huang on a trip to South Korea a year ago, both with diplomatic meetings with the Chinese leader.
During this time, the CEO lobbied to relax restrictions on the export of advanced chips to China, in a context where the Administration considers these microprocessors "a critical element for national security."
Nvidia, which manufactures state-of-the-art chips used by data centers to train the most advanced AI models, is at the center of the tug-of-war between Washington and Beijing over the technology race.
Huang, born in Taiwan and raised in Oregon, founded Nvidia in 1993 as a graphics card company for video games, and a decade later the firm pivoted towards microprocessors for the AI industry, scaling up to become the world's largest company by stock market value, which it ceded last week in favor of Apple.
After the scandal became public, Nvidia's shares have fallen by about 22% in the last month, which means losing around a trillion dollars in just 30 days; the next step is to see what the committee that Nvidia announced to analyze the situation decides and how the investigation evolves.
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