What we know as pressure builds on embattled Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang

One of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry's most important figures could be ousted from his role amid allegations that he had extramarital affairs with two women - one a suspected Chinese spy and the other a company executive.

Chip-maker Nvidia hired a major law firm earlier this week to investigate CEO Jensen Huang's reported relationship with a woman who was allegedly a Chinese intelligence asset.

Now the firm is reportedly weighing whether to remove Huang after its stocks plummeted on Wednesday following US media reports about a second alleged affair.

Huang admitted , external earlier this week to having been "unfaithful" to his wife and he apologised for hurting her and their children.

Nvidia's board was reportedly meeting on Wednesday evening to decide whether its CEO should remain with the company.

The BBC called Nvidia representatives and board members for comment, but received no reply.

Nvidia has 11 directors on its board, including Huang, and the CEO can be removed with or without cause by a majority vote of directors, according to Reuters news agency.

Should Nvidia's board choose to oust Huang, or place him on leave, it was not immediately clear who might step into his shoes, even on an interim basis.

One possibility is Nvidia co-founder Chris Malachowsky. He has been at the company as long as Huang, and for years led its product engineering work.

Huang's children, Spencer and Madison, and son-in-law Nico Caprez also work at Nvidia in senior roles, but they are relatively young and inexperienced.

Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress could serve as interim CEO, according to analysts.

Kress would be the natural choice, Armina Rosenberg, co-founder of Minotaur Capital, which holds Nvidia shares, told Reuters news agency.

A New York Times report at the weekend revealed Jensen Huang had a close relationship with Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, who US intelligence officials believed was a spy for Beijing.

Alice Huang had previously been photographed with the Nvidia chief on several occasions.

Nvidia's board of directors launched an independent external investigation on Sunday following the reports. They earlier said Huang's interactions with the woman were "not unusual or unexpected".

Then on Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Huang also had an extramarital relationship with a Nvidia executive who reports directly to him. She did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Image source, AFP US officials believed that Alice Huang had been recruited to spy by China's top intelligence agency, the New York Times reported , external .

Alice Huang, no relation to Jensen Huang, was a top executive at Singapore-based data centre firm Megaspeed between March and November 2023. Bloomberg News reported that she was currently living in China.

Her company had been suspected of helping divert Nvidia chips to China. Nvidia said this was investigated and debunked.

However, Megaspeed is under investigation by the Singapore government regarding previous allegations that the company was circumventing US sanctions on the export of Nvidia's high-end chips.

It remains unclear what, if any, intelligence Alice Huang – who is also known as Huang Le – allegedly gathered and passed to Beijing.

When the BBC asked Nvidia if the company was aware of intelligence concerns, the company said it was not.

China has rejected the spying allegations as "entirely groundless".

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Nvidia is at the heart of US and China's AI race , which is why the billionaire boss's affair has sparked national security fears among American lawmakers.

Trump has said "whoever wins AI wins", and the concern is that if China gains the upper hand in AI, it will supercharge the country's military and surveillance capabilities.

The US advantage is in large part because of companies like Nvidia, working with producers such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which makes more than 90% of the world's most advanced chips.

Since 2022, the US has used various export controls to keep the top tech out of China, which it says helps retain America's competitive edge and protects its national security.

This means companies like Nvidia have been largely locked out of the world's most lucrative market, with Jensen Huang once saying that Nvidia's share of the Chinese market had gone from around 95% to effectively zero.

Jensen Huang has engaged in shuttle diplomacy between Washington and Beijing, hoping to find a US-approved way back in, and shaping US policy on China along the way.

The revelations may explain why Jensen Huang has failed to bring home the biggest prize of all to Nvidia: the Trump administration's blessing to sell all but its most advanced chips to China .

Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images Born in Taiwan in 1963, Jensen Huang was nine years old when his family moved to the West Coast of the US. He graduated as an electrical engineer from Oregon State University, and then with a master's degree in the same field from Stanford University.

He worked at US chip firm AMD before co-founding Nvidia. Known as "Daddy Huang" in Taiwan and once lauded as the "Taylor Swift of tech" , he has a reputation as a workaholic with incredibly high standards for his staff.

He has an estimated fortune of $155bn (£115bn), according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

"Jensen Huang is a tech visionary of the likes of Steve Jobs," Stephen Witt, the author of Thinking Machine, a biography on the Jensen Huang, told the BBC, adding that he was responsible for creating AI hardware as we know it today.

The Nvidia co-founder has a famously close relationship with Trump. At the recent AI summit at the White House, where 42 tech executives were present, the president was flanked by Elon Musk and Huang.

After news broke out about the first affair, Nvidia launched an independent investigation and hired New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.

It will be led by Joon Kim, a former US Attorney for New York's Southern District who is now a litigation partner at the law firm.