Image source, AFP
One of the most prominent figures in the artificial intelligence (AI) industry has been accused of having an affair with an alleged Chinese spy, prompting an investigation.
US intelligence services believe that Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, with a close relationship with Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang, was a spy for Beijing, according to a New York Times article.
Huang admitted on Sunday to having been "unfaithful" to his wife and apologized for hurting her and their children.
The American technology giant Nvidia, one of the most valuable companies in the world, has opened an independent investigation following the disclosure of this information.
The company said it does not believe U.S. national security has been at risk and added that Huang is committed to continuing to lead the company.
Here's what we know about the issue and why it matters.
Who is Alice Huang and what do we know about this romance?
US officials believe Alice Huang was recruited to spy by China's top intelligence agency, the New York Times reported. His current whereabouts are unknown.
Alice Huang, who is not related to Jensen Huang, was a senior executive at Megaspeed, a data center company based in Singapore, between March and November 2023.
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The company is suspected of helping divert Nvidia chips to China, a concern that Nvidia maintains was investigated and dismissed.
The BBC has learned, however, that Megaspeed is being investigated by the Singapore government over previous allegations that the company was evading US sanctions on the export of Nvidia's high-end chips.
The company told the New York Times last month that its current management team took the allegations seriously and had hired outside legal counsel to conduct an internal investigation.
Surveillance efforts allegedly revealed communications between Alice Huang and a U.S. citizen, who was later identified as Jensen Huang through a process known as "unmasking."
It is still unclear what information, if any, Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, collected and transmitted to Beijing.
She did not respond to the New York newspaper's request for comment.
When the BBC asked Nvidia if the company was aware of the intelligence concerns, the company said no.
"We are confident that if we had been subject to a real threat, the US government would have notified us," an Nvidia spokesperson told the BBC.
China rejects espionage accusations.
"We have already responded to this. The accusations about Chinese spies are totally unfounded, speculative and are aimed at defaming and discrediting China," Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said in his daily press conference on Monday.
In late October, The New York Times reported that Trump had been notified last year of intelligence alleging that Alice Huang was spying for China.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined to comment when asked about Huang.
In the first half of this year, Rubio supervised the writing of a memo that warned about Huang's relationship with the Chinese businesswoman, according to the New York Times.
Why does it matter?
image source, Reuters
Nvidia is at the center of the AI race between the US and China, which is why the billionaire's affair has sparked national security fears among US lawmakers.
Trump has said the fear is that if China gains the lead in AI, it will greatly boost the country's military and surveillance capabilities.
The US advantage is largely due to US companies like Nvidia, working with producers like 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 prevent the shipment of cutting-edge technology to China, which it claims helps maintain the US's competitive advantage and protects its national security.
This means that companies like Nvidia have been virtually excluded from the world's most lucrative market, with Huang going so far as to say that Nvidia's market share in China had gone from around 95% to virtually zero.
Huang has dedicated himself to diplomacy between Washington and Beijing, hoping to find a way to rejoin US-sanctioned international relations while influencing US policy toward China.
Sunday's revelations could explain why Huang has failed to secure the big prize for Nvidia: approval from the Trump administration to sell all but its most advanced chips to China.
Who is Jensen Huang?
Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images
Huang was born in Taiwan in 1963 and was 9 years old when his family moved to the west coast of the US.
He graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University and later earned a master's degree in the same discipline from Stanford University.
Huang then worked at the American semiconductor company AMD, and later co-founded Nvidia.
Known as "Daddy Huang" in Taiwan and once hailed as the "Taylor Swift of technology," he has a reputation as a workaholic and perfectionist with incredibly high standards for his staff.
His fortune is estimated at US$155 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
"Jensen Huang is a technology visionary on the level of Steve Jobs," Stephen Witt, author of "The Thinking Machine," a biography of Huang, told the BBC, adding that he was responsible for creating AI hardware as we know it today.
Huang maintains a very close relationship with Trump.
At the recent AI summit held at the White House, attended by 42 technology sector executives, the president was accompanied by Elon Musk and Huang.
Trump claimed not to have spoken to the head of Nvidia since news of the investigation broke.
"I know he's a good person, but you never know what's going on," Trump told reporters, adding that he had "done an incredible job" for the US.
What is Nvidia and how important is it?
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Founded in 1993 by Huang and fellow electrical engineers Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, the company was originally known for its graphics processing chips, especially for video games.
Over time, he shifted his focus to AI, a field he now dominates.
Huang rescued Nvidia from bankruptcy on more than one occasion and took risks in the field of AI long before the rest of the world, effectively building the infrastructure from scratch.
"Today, when we think about that, we think about those gigantic data centers; none of that existed. There were no customers for what he was building. In fact, his first customer was OpenAI," Witt told the BBC.
All of the prominent tech companies developing AI tools and infrastructure, including Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft, now use Nvidia chips.
Currently worth $4.5 trillion, Nvidia is one of the most valuable companies in history.
For now, the company's board of directors appears to have little interest in removing Huang, and in a statement issued on Sunday said it has "confidence in Jensen and his management team."
Sources consulted by the BBC say that his dismissal is unlikely due to the large amount of money at stake.
There is no public succession plan for the 63-year-old.
He has repeatedly expressed his desire to remain in the role for decades, and Bloomberg reports that he has created an informal leadership structure around him, distinct from the traditional hierarchy of a company.
His children, Spencer and Madison, and his son-in-law, Nico Caprez, work at Nvidia in senior positions.
Who is Jensen Huang's wife?
Huang met his future wife, Lori Mills, at Oregon State University while studying electrical engineering in the early 1980s. They were lab mates.
They married in 1985, about eight years before he co-founded Nvidia, and have two children, Madison and Spencer.
In 2007, the couple created the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Foundation.
This charitable fund has seen its assets increase considerably in recent years, driven by the rapid increase in Nvidia's share price, and its market capitalization is estimated to exceed US$9 billion.
His donations include tens of millions of dollars toward engineering programs at Oregon State University and Stanford University.
Witt told the BBC that Huang has tried hard to present himself as a family man, adding: "That's very important to him."
"He praises his wife, he speaks of her with great admiration," he added.
"The consequences of this would be negative for any family. But for someone who has worked so hard to cultivate an image as a family man and who keeps his children very close, it is really serious."
Additional reporting by Tom McArthur in London, Ayeshea Perera and Tessa Wong in Singapore and Helen Davidson in Sydney.
This article was originally written in English and we used an artificial intelligence tool to translate it. BBC journalists reviewed the text before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
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