Nvidia board hires ex-prosecutor to probe CEO Jensen Huang's ties to Chinese businesswoman

Nvidia's independent board has hired former federal prosecutor Joon H. Kim to investigate whether CEO Jensen Huang was compromised by a suspected Chinese spy, Alice Huang, with whom he had an extramarital affair. Reports allege she helped smuggle AI chips to China.

A new journalistic investigation published on November 10 by The Information and Reuters has revealed that Chinese businesswoman Alice Huang, who was in a close relationship with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, helped smuggle about 240,000 advanced AI chips into China through a network of shell companies. The chips in question are H100 and H200 models, whose supply to China is restricted by US authorities. According to the investigation, Huang used her connections with her namesake NVIDIA executive to obtain large batches of chips. US intelligence agencies, including the FBI, suspect her of ties to China's Ministry of State Security. The article also describes Huang's biography: she was born in Hunan province, has Hong Kong permanent resident status, and worked as a journalist and financier. In 2023, she became CEO of Singapore-based Megaspeed International, which obtained official cloud partner status with NVIDIA. Companies linked to her purchased chips worth about $7.5 billion. Some of the equipment ended up in data centers serving Alibaba and Tencent. The headline uses the dramatized phrasing "Mistress-spy threatening the whole world," which is clickbait.