Nvidia’s board has opened an investigation into its CEO Jensen Huang after he admitted to an affair, amid allegations he had a commercial relationship with a woman US authorities feel is likely a Chinese spy.
The AI hardware giant’s board published a statement on Sunday afternoon that states it is “initiating an independent investigation in light of recent reporting that founder and CEO Jensen Huang has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.”
The New York Times is the source of that reporting. On October 29 it alleged US government intelligence agencies decided to investigate a woman who goes by Alice Huang and/or Huang Le, on grounds she passes intelligence with Beijing.
In that story The Times used the term “close relationship” to describe the Nvidia CEO's associations with both Ms Huang and US president Donald Trump.
On Sunday the newspaper alleged US authorities believe Alice Huang and Jensen Huang shared a "romantic" relationship.
The Times further alleges Ms Huang is a Chinese citizen who worked for a Singapore-based company called Megaspeed that has bought plenty of Nvidia hardware and is suspected of doing so to make it available to Chinese users, either by running inside datacenters or facilitating transport to the Middle Kingdom.
The US has for years banned or restricted exports of advanced GPUs to China, partly because it feels Beijing’s armed forces can use them to build systems that will erode America’s military superiority.
Any relationship, of any sort, between Jensen Huang and a Chinese intelligence operative would therefore be enormously concerning. The company told The Times that Jensen Huang and Alice Huang just had normal CEO-to-customer-exec chats that were no threat to Nvidia intellectual property or US national security.
Shortly after Nvidia’s board published its statement, Huang sent an email to staff that the company made public.
“I owe my family and all of you an apology,” the email opens. “I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry.”
Huang’s email doesn’t explicitly link his actions to The Times’ reports, but he says he supports the Nvidia board’s decision to open its investigation “and will cooperate fully.”
“I love our country and our company,” Huang wrote. “I am committed to protecting NVIDIA and supporting America’s national security. I am proud and grateful to be an American.”
The CEO’s mail, and the Board’s statement, make no allegations about any “close relationship” with Ms. Huang.
The exact nature of that relationship therefore remains mysterious, as does Nvidia’s relationship with Singapore, a tiny island nation that has sometimes been the source of 22 percent of the company’s revenue.
Singapore is simply incapable of hosting as much Nvidia kit as that volume of purchases would buy, because its government limits datacenters to 1.6 GW of energy consumption. When asked to explain that oddity, Nvidia has said that it’s satisfied Singaporean entities buy its hardware on behalf of end-users in other locations, and that such deals are not used to evade the USA’s sanctions.
Nvidia is not a notably scandal-prone company, but in 2022 it did admit to having previously misrepresented the impact of cryptocurrency mining on sales of its gaming hardware. China has opened an antitrust case, and US authorities may have considered doing likewise.
Jensen Huang, however, has never presented as the kind of CEO who makes operating at the edge of the law a regular tactic. Nor does he hold sufficient Nvidia shares or voting power to unilaterally make major decisions.
This leaves the leader of the world’s top AI company appearing to have made a very human error. ®
Source: The register