Nvidia's board asks its independent members to establish whether Jensen Huang was targeted by Beijing
The chief executive admits to an extramarital relationship with a manager at a Singapore customer, while the board sees no sign that company secrets leaked.
Nvidia's board announced on Sunday an independent investigation into chief executive and co-founder Jensen Huang. A committee of independent directors, assisted by outside lawyers, is to examine reports that Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence service, CBS News reports. The board says it has no reason to believe company secrets or national security were compromised and that it still has confidence in Huang, Al Jazeera writes.
The affair came to light through The New York Times and, on Saturday, the Financial Times, NOS reports. US intelligence agencies suspect that Huang had an intimate relationship with Alice Huang, a manager at Megaspeed, a Singapore data centre company that is one of Nvidia's biggest customers in South-East Asia. Those agencies believe she works for China's Ministry of State Security. According to the US newspaper, Megaspeed bought more than 4.8 billion dollars' worth of Nvidia chips over the past two years. China had already dismissed the allegations as groundless.
Huang admits he was unfaithful to his wife and has apologised, including to staff, the board and shareholders. He says he supports the investigation and will cooperate fully. According to NOS, influential Republicans in the House of Representatives had already asked him to answer questions behind closed doors. The case touches a company whose chips power many AI data centres and which is subject to US export restrictions on China. The share price recovered 2.8 percent on Friday after heavy losses earlier in the week, AP reports.