Washington (United States) (AFP) – Nvidia chief Jensen Huang, whose chips power the global AI boom and who has the ear of President Donald Trump, has admitted to an affair with a Chinese executive who US intelligence reportedly believes was working for Beijing. Here is what we know:
– **What happened?**
Huang, 63, acknowledged the relationship Sunday in a message to Nvidia employees. “I was unfaithful to my wife,” he wrote. “My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.” Huang has been married to his wife Lori since 1985. His admission followed reports in The New York Times that US intelligence officials had concluded the woman, Alice Huang, was passing information to China. She is not related to the Nvidia chief. Nvidia had previously said that his interactions with her were “not unusual or unexpected” given their business ties.
– **Who is Alice Huang?**
Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, was a senior executive at Megaspeed. The Singapore-based data center company was spun off from a Chinese company in 2023, and it rents out computing power from Nvidia chips. The Wall Street Journal reported that she and Huang were photographed together in Taipei in 2024 and 2025. According to the Times, a memo circulated among senior US officials this spring cited intelligence that she was an asset of China’s Ministry of State Security. The memo said she had been recruited to gather information on Huang and possibly to steer Nvidia toward pushing for its top chips to be sold in China. The Journal said that authorities in Singapore and Taiwan also suspected Chinese intelligence had recruited her after learning of her closeness to Huang. Her current whereabouts are unclear. US officials suspect Megaspeed of helping smuggle restricted chips into China, and the Justice Department has taken over a federal investigation into the company. Megaspeed has previously described itself as a “compliant and legitimate company.” Beijing rejected the allegations. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said Monday that “the narrative of a so-called Chinese spy is entirely baseless vilification and smearing.”
– **Why does it matter?**
Nvidia controls an estimated 90 percent of the market for the chips used to train and run AI models. Washington has restricted sales of the most advanced ones to China since 2022 under the Biden administration. Huang has also been one of Trump’s most influential informal advisers on AI. The Journal reported that intelligence officials suspected the affair while Huang was lobbying the White House to allow chip exports to China. Late last year, he pushed to sell Nvidia’s most powerful chips there, an effort that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials blocked. Trump instead allowed sales of a less advanced chip, with the US government taking a 25 percent cut. According to the Times, Trump was briefed on the intelligence roughly a year ago and did not act on it. On Fox News on Sunday, Trump was asked whether Huang should remain CEO. “I think so, oh yeah, sure,” he said, calling Huang “an honorable guy.” Trump said he did not regret not acting on the intelligence.
– **What is the board doing?**
Nvidia’s board on Sunday said it had opened an independent probe into the matter. “While the board has no reason to believe that either national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, the board’s inquiry will examine all available information,” it said. According to the Times, a committee of independent directors working with outside counsel will lead the review, and Huang will remain CEO in the meantime.
– **What comes next?**
Republican House committee leaders, including those on the Select Committee on China, have asked Huang to attend a closed-door briefing on Nvidia’s security protocols in Washington on November 18. Analyst Dan Ives of Yorkville Ives predicted the episode would lead to multiple congressional inquiries. He said Huang would likely keep his job in the near term but could be ousted depending on the internal inquiry’s findings. George Chen of The Asia Group told AFP it would be “premature to conclude that Jensen poses a threat to US national security before the facts are fully established.”
© 2024 AFP
