Nvidia looks into CEO Jensen Huang's alleged affair with businesswoman

The board of directors of US chipmaker Nvidia opens an internal investigation into whether the company's co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, after he admitted having an intimate relationship with a business executive accused of spying.

Nvidia says in an announcement Sunday that the probe is to be carried out by a committee of independent directors with outside counsel, during which Jensen Huang will remain CEO.

The 63-year-old has been the epicentre of the recent AI boom.

The New York Times reported last month that Huang was having an affair with Chinese citizen and chip buyer Alice Huang, or Huang Le, who served as an executive of Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed.

Alice Huang was publicly spotted together with Jensen Huang at a Taipei eatery last year, reportedly in the company of other business executives.

Over the past two years, Megaspeed purchased over 4.8 billion US dollars worth of Nvidia chips and emerged as its major customer in Southeast Asia.

The US intelligence officers concluded the woman was aiding Chinese intelligence efforts to sell advanced chips to the country.

The fallout of the news extended to South Korea, where Jensen Huang's daughter Madison cancelled a visit to Seoul for an Nvidia conference that was scheduled for Monday.

In a letter to his employees on Sunday, Jensen Huang said he had been unfaithful to his wife and apologised to his family, without naming the person in the extramarital affair or disclosing details of the relationship.

He did, however, referred to the national security concerns raised in the media reports and said he's committed to protecting Nvidia and supporting America's national security.

Huang wrote, "Leading Nvidia is the privilege of my life. My responsibility is to serve you and be worthy of your trust. I have fallen short of that responsibility."

Months ago, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio flagged Jensen Huang's alleged entanglement with Chinese spy in a classified memo to senior White House officials prior to US President Donald Trump's visit to Beijing in May. The memo was reportedly based on electronic surveillance of Alice Huang.

Rubio said on Sunday as he departed the US for a G7 meeting in Paris that he could not comment on the situation with Huang because of the nature of it.

Trump called Huang an honourable person and backed him to stay on as head of Nvidia.

"I have not spoken to him about it, I just know he's a fine person but you never know what is going on. I'm sure, I hope everything's fine. He's done such an incredible job."

(Reporter Mr. President, is he going to go with you on your trip to Asia next week?)

Trump said, "I don't know, but I'd certainly take him. I mean, we'd have to find. I haven't heard he's done anything wrong."

In Beijing, the foreign ministry says the so-called Chinese spy narrative in relation to the Nvidia probe is unsubstantiated.

Spokesman Guo Jiakun states It is nothing but smears against China.

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