Top Republican lawmakers have summoned Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to appear before Congress on November 18 to address concerns that he has been targeted by a Chinese spying operation. The chairs of the House committees on China, foreign affairs, and intelligence cited national security concerns regarding the People's Republic of China's access to sensitive US technology. The lawmakers specifically referenced reports that US intelligence officials believe Huang was targeted by a Chinese spy operation linked to Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, a Singapore-based cloud company that has purchased billions of dollars of Nvidia's chips.
The lawmakers seek to determine the extent to which US national security has been placed at risk. Nvidia has rejected the claims, stating that its CEO's meetings with customers are standard business and that regional cloud customers receive ordinary business information, not sensitive trade secrets. The company asserts its chief executive has an outstanding security team that travels with him.
The New York Times reported that Huang had not received a defensive briefing, which the intelligence community usually provides to potential espionage targets. Nvidia says it is confident the US government would notify the company if it considered anyone a threat to US industry. Separately, the US has previously scrutinized Megaspeed, founded in 2023 as a spin-off from a Chinese gaming company, for potential chip smuggling.
Nvidia has conducted on-site inspections at Megaspeed, finding no evidence of its chips being diverted into China. Earlier this year, Wally Liaw, co-founder of Supermicro, one of Nvidia's key supply chain partners, was arrested and charged with smuggling Nvidia chips into China.
Source: Financial Times Companies · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing