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The US intelligence community is still trying to understand the nature of the connection between Alice Huang, who had an affair with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and the Chinese government.
According to what several sources told CNN, the information gathered so far about him does not demonstrate that he acted as a spy for Beijing. There is no unanimity among American officials on the strength of the evidence that would suggest that Alice Huang was recruited by the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese equivalent of the CIA.
US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick will testify before Congress on the Nvidia case. The American media reported it. “Secretary Lutnick agreed on his own initiative to appear before the Banking Committee to answer their questions,” the secretary’s spokeswoman Kristen Eichamer told NBC News. Lutnick landed in the dust because, before the Trump administration gave the green light to Nvidia to sell advanced chips to China, the Department had an obligation to vet the companies for national security risks.
The story of Jensen Huang, founder and now former CEO of Nvidia, has dominated discussions on Chinese social networks all week, arousing contrasting reactions between solidarity, regret and geopolitical theories. CNN reports it, underlining the popularity the billionaire enjoys in China, also thanks to his previous visits to Beijing, during which he went viral for tasting street food. Huang’s resignation, announced Thursday after revelations about alleged extramarital affairs, including one with Alice Huang, an executive at a technology company suspected by US officials of being linked to Chinese intelligence, has fueled a heated online debate. Several users expressed solidarity with the founder of Nvidia, underlining how quickly a person’s destiny can change after decades of success. Others have interpreted the scandal from a geopolitical perspective, arguing that the accusations could be instrumental in slowing down China’s technological development in competition with the United States.
The Nvidia case puts the spotlight on Singapore and Malaysia in the global chip chain
The storm that hit Nvidia and led to the resignation of CEO Jensen Huang puts the spotlight on the role of Singapore and Malaysia in the global chain of semiconductors for artificial intelligence. As an analysis by Nikkei Asia highlights, the two South-East Asian countries – which in recent years have become privileged destinations for billions of dollars of investments in data centers and cloud infrastructures – now find themselves under the scrutiny of Washington for the risk of being used as transit hubs and rental of computing power towards China. In focus are billion-dollar supplies of advanced chips going to Singapore-based companies such as Megaspeed and installed in data centers across the border in Malaysia. While Singaporean police continue their fraud investigation and have charged a fifth person linked to the export of servers to Malaysia, the matter puts pressure on the regulatory reputation of the entire region and risks tightening American controls on technology exports to Southeast Asia.