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.

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