United States President Donald Trump has said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang's relationship with a woman accused of working for Chinese intelligence, in a controversy that has shaken the world's most valuable chipmaker and raised fresh questions about national security at the heart of the artificial intelligence boom.
Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump said he had spoken to Huang about the matter and that the Nvidia chief had told him he had no idea the woman was a spy. "I asked him that question: 'Did you have any idea that she was a spy?' He said, 'I had no idea that she was a spy,' and I really believe him," Trump told reporters. "I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he'll be in good shape," he added.
The woman at the centre of the affair has been named in reports as Alice Huang, a former executive of Megaspeed, a Singapore-based data centre company, who is not related to Jensen Huang. The New York Times reported last month that United States intelligence agencies had concluded she was an asset of Chinese intelligence who had been gathering information for Beijing, and that she was said to have links to China's Ministry of State Security. The reports say Huang had a relationship with her and that she passed information to Beijing, though no evidence has been made public that Huang himself knowingly shared company secrets or passed information to anyone.
Huang, 63, has acknowledged that he had an affair and has apologised to his wife and to the company in an open letter published on Nvidia's website. He has not disclosed details of the relationship, and he has not been accused by any authority of spying or of any other wrongdoing. The distinction matters: the inquiries now under way concern whether he was the target of a foreign intelligence effort, not whether he took part in one.
Nvidia's board announced on Sunday that it had opened an independent investigation, overseen by outside counsel, into whether Huang had been the target of a foreign intelligence operation. The board said it had no reason to believe that national security or company secrets had been compromised, but that the inquiry would examine all available information. The announcement followed media reports that cited United States intelligence findings about the woman's alleged role.
The affair has also reached the courts. On Monday, Nvidia and Huang were sued in a proposed class action filed in a federal court in San Jose, California. The lawsuit accuses them of misleading shareholders by concealing the relationship and the national security concerns arising from it, which the complaint says could threaten Nvidia's reputation and business prospects. The case adds a legal front to a crisis that had already become a boardroom and political problem.
Investors reacted sharply. Nvidia's shares closed down more than 4 percent on Monday after the board launched its investigation, a fall that wiped tens of billions of dollars from the value of a company that has become the single most important supplier of the chips powering the artificial intelligence boom. Market watchers quoted by Reuters said the episode had landed at a brutal time for the AI trade, and that Nvidia's earnings on 17 November would be the next real test of investor confidence.
China rejected the allegations on Monday. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said the reports were groundless speculation and a smear against China, and denied that Beijing had engaged in any attempt to ensnare Huang. The denial came as the affair continued to dominate coverage of the technology industry and of the wider rivalry between Washington and Beijing over advanced chips.
The New York Times has also reported that Trump was briefed on Huang's relationship with the woman and on the assessment that she was passing information to the Chinese government, and that the president chose not to act on the information at the time. The report has added a political dimension to the story, with questions being asked about what the White House knew, and when, about the chief executive of a company so central to American technology policy.
What happens next will turn on three separate processes: the FBI's inquiries, the board's independent investigation, and the shareholder lawsuit in California. None has yet produced a finding against Huang, and the board has stressed that it has seen no reason to believe secrets were compromised. But the episode has already exposed how exposed even the most powerful figures in technology can be to foreign intelligence efforts, and how quickly a personal matter can become a question of national security when the person involved runs the company that makes the chips the world is racing to control.
Figures in this report were checked at 08:57 PKT on 10 November 2026 against reports from Al Jazeera, Reuters and Business Standard.
