GUWAHATI: Tech giant Nvidia has opened an independent investigation into co-founder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang after he confirmed an intimate relationship with a woman accused of working for Chinese intelligence, a case some reports describe as an alleged honey trap.
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The company announced Sunday that a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, will conduct the probe. The board said it has no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, but that the inquiry will examine all available information. It said it continues to have confidence in Huang and his leadership team, and he will keep running the company while the investigation is under way.
In an email to staff the same day, Huang admitted the affair, saying he was unfaithful to his wife and that his actions hurt her and their children.
The probe follows an Oct. 29 report by a prominent US based newspaper, which said a Chinese woman named Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, sought to cultivate close ties with the Nvidia chief in order to learn about the company's technology. The Times also reported that her employer, Megaspeed, had become one of Nvidia's largest buyers, purchasing about $4.8 billion in equipment. The two Huangs are not related. Other outlets have identified her as a former executive of a Singapore-based data center company suspected of Chinese intelligence links.
The admission also complicates earlier public positions. Bloomberg reported that Huang and Nvidia had both described Megaspeed as a legitimate, albeit large, buyer of Nvidia's AI chips despite US government concerns. One outlet reported that Huang hired a crisis communications firm in 2025, a year before he acknowledged the relationship.
China, on the other hand, has rejected the allegations. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the spying claims unsubstantiated and said they were nothing but smears against China. The allegation that Alice Huang worked for Chinese intelligence has not been proven in public, and she has not been charged with anything.
The scandal has hit the company's stock. Nvidia lost $450 billion in market value in a single day.
