NVIDIA board investigates Jensen Huang’s ties to suspected Chinese agent

NVIDIA announced on Sunday that its board of directors is launching an independent investigation into founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed. The U.S. intelligence community reportedly believes she is an agent of the Chinese state. China’s Ministry of State Security allegedly recruited her to extract information from Jensen Huang. The inquiry follows allegations that the pair had a close relationship.

Megaspeed is suspected of helping Chinese companies evade U.S. export controls on NVIDIA chips, allowing customers to use chips barred from shipment to China. Its network of sister companies is building data centers in Malaysia to meet Chinese customers’ computing needs. The allegations link concerns about access to restricted computing hardware with a suspected effort to obtain information from NVIDIA’s chief executive.