US President Donald Trump has said the FBI is investigating an alleged affair between Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang and a woman suspected of being a Chinese spy.
Trump said he spoke to Huang on Monday following reports that US intelligence officials believed the Nvidia chief had been targeted in a Chinese espionage campaign, reports BBC.
“I asked him that question, ‘Did you have any idea she was a spy?’ He said ‘I had no idea she was a spy’ and I really believe him,” Trump told reporters.
Beijing has rejected the allegations, with its foreign ministry describing them as “entirely groundless, speculative and intended to smear and malign China”.
Nvidia, which has commissioned an independent investigation into the matter involving Alice Huang, the woman alleged to be a Chinese spy, said it had no reason to believe that its trade secrets or national security had been compromised.
The company, the world’s second most valuable after Apple, designs computer chips that have become central to artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
The revelations wiped about $250 billion (£190 billion) off Nvidia’s market value on Monday, as its share price fell by more than 4 per cent.
Trump later told reporters at the White House that the FBI was investigating the matter but did not elaborate on the probe or say when it began. The FBI declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.
US intelligence officials believe Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, was working as a spy for Beijing, according to a report by The New York Times.
The report said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a memo to senior officials in Washington last spring, warning that the Nvidia chief was in a close relationship with a Chinese spy.
Alice Huang was the managing director of Singapore-based company Megaspeed, which has had business dealings with Nvidia, a key player in the global AI industry through its microchips. She is not related to Jensen Huang.
Trump’s remarks marked the first indication of whether the Nvidia chief knew about the woman’s alleged links to Chinese espionage.
The US company, co-founded by Huang, is also a major focus of the AI rivalry between Washington and Beijing, with US officials treating its exports to China as a national security issue.
Huang and Nvidia were also named in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed in California on Monday, accusing them of defrauding shareholders by concealing the chief executive’s alleged ties to a suspected Chinese spy.
The lawsuit claims the company misled the media about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, “who is suspected of seeking to help smuggle Nvidia products to China”.
The BBC has contacted Nvidia for comment on the lawsuit.
He said he had no idea she was a spy
At the White House, Trump was asked several times, including by the BBC, when he first learned about the relationship. He said he had been informed “over a period of time” but did not provide further details.
Trump described Huang as an “honorable guy” and said he felt confident that the Nvidia chief would be “in good shape” after the investigations.
“I hope there’s no problem, I believe he is suffering greatly,” the president said.
Trump said he spoke to Huang by phone on Monday “just to see if he’s feeling alright, how you doing, and I asked him about that and he said he absolutely had no idea that the person in question was a spy”.
Nvidia designs advanced computer chips that power AI models and sits at the centre of the technology race between the US and China, making the allegations surrounding Huang a national security concern.
Trump has warned that allowing China to take the lead in AI could significantly strengthen Beijing’s military and surveillance capabilities.
The president also said he was “sure” Chinese President Xi Jinping would “ask me about it” when they next met.
Huang has admitted being “unfaithful” to his wife and apologised for hurting her and their children.
On Monday, he said he was “committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America’s national security” and would cooperate with the company’s investigation.
Huang has also been asked to attend a joint closed-door briefing with several congressional committees next week.
In a letter, the committee chairmen said they wanted a briefing “on Nvidia’s security protocols against foreign adversary espionage and your interactions with a publicly reported People’s Republic of China (PRC) intelligence asset: Megaspeed executive Alice Huang”.
It remains unclear whether Huang will attend. Nvidia has declined to comment, while the BBC has also contacted the committees.
Some employees whom the BBC spoke to at Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara on Monday said it was business as usual despite the intense attention surrounding the company.
Huang co-founded Nvidia with two other engineers in 1993. Although the company has been operating for decades, its rise to become one of the world’s most valuable and influential companies has come in recent years.
Nvidia initially designed computer chips for gaming, but its decision to shift its focus to AI development transformed it into the technology powerhouse it is today.
Its chips have become so important to the global AI infrastructure that the White House previously imposed restrictions on where its advanced products could be sold.
The H200, Nvidia’s second most advanced semiconductor, had previously been restricted over concerns that it could give China’s technology industry an advantage over the US.
However, Huang has long opposed restrictions on sales to China, arguing that the global expansion of AI would be better served by US technology.
In January, the Trump administration said Nvidia could sell its H200 chips to Chinese customers under certain conditions.
However, the company’s most advanced AI semiconductors, including the GB200 Blackwell superchip, remain barred from the Chinese market.
