The AI poster boy, the ‘Chinese spy’ and Trump: how an affair may have harmed US security

The AI poster boy, the ‘Chinese spy’ and Trump: how an affair may have harmed US security Jensen Huang’s close relationship with president means Nvidia CEO’s affair with woman alleged to be working for Beijing is a big deal

A hand on the back, a kiss on the cheek; the footage of Alice Huang’s interaction with Jensen Huang in a Taipei venue last year does not seem particularly remarkable at first glance.

But the Nvidia chief executive’s revelation on Sunday that he had an affair with Ms Huang has given it new significance.

According to reports, his lover, who is not a relation, was not just an executive at an Nvidia customer. She was also an alleged Chinese spy.

Nvidia has now launched an independent investigation into reports that the boss of a cornerstone company in the global AI boom has been the target of a foreign intelligence effort.

“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,” said the board.

Huang, 63, a poster boy of the AI boom in his trademark leather jacket, admitted there was “no excuse” for what he had done.

Aside from Huang’s dented personal reputation, what is the scale of the damage done to Nvidia and US national security?

The story started to emerge last year when the New York Times and Bloomberg raised questions about a Singapore-based buyer of Nvidia’s powerful chips, which have become the proverbial shovels in the AI gold rush. There were concerns that Megaspeed was flouting US restrictions on AI chip exports to China by diverting some Nvidia inventory to America’s arch AI rival. Nvidia and Megaspeed denied this.

Then last month came a further startling NYT report that Jensen Huang, a Megaspeed executive, had formed a “close relationship” with Ms Huang and that American officials believed she was a Chinese intelligence asset. Donald Trump had been told, but decided not to act on the information. It is now evident that the relationship was more than just close.

At the heart of the question of what China might have achieved through Alice Huang is the extremely close relationship between the CEO of the world’s second-most-valuable company and the president of the United States.

The New York Times reported on Monday that Nvidia appeared to have successfully leaned on the US commerce department to halt an investigation into potential chip smuggling on the part of Megaspeed. That pressure came through a Trump appointee, who allowed Nvidia to reach out about the case.