The difficult questions Nvidia now has to try to answer include whether Alice gained special access to the firm’s latest technology, either deliberately or not, via Jensen – and, if so, whether she shared it with Beijing or others.
We don’t know when their affair began or ended, but there are numerous photos and videos of Jensen and Alice together at events. It is feasible that there were moments when they spent quite a lot of time together and Jensen has talked about always having an eye on his work.
China denies that she was engaged in espionage.
Interest in economic espionage is neither new nor unique to China. But many Western countries say that China does it on a grand scale, using a combination of technology tools and agents embedded in various organisations – including private companies.
China having access to significant enough numbers of Nvidia’s chips to make use of them, or stripping them down and learning how to make its own versions, would infuriate the Trump administration, which is trying to keep its AI technology close to its chest.
Some models have even been withheld from the UK-based AI Safety Institute on the grounds that they are potentially too dangerous to be shared. The US does not want anyone having a headstart or misusing its innovations.
Another potential bombshell lies in the form of any national security information to which Jensen Huang may have been privy.
He is a man operating at the very top of the US elite – one of a handful of people who could probably walk into the White House unannounced and have tea with Trump. He has influence, he has access and he has powerful friends. It’s quite possible that secrets were shared with him.
Nvidia says there’s no evidence so far that he passed anything on and the firm has launched an internal investigation. Huang says he will co-operate and wants to keep his job – though if nothing else, he has broken Nvidia’s own code of conduct, which states that company members should not have relationships with clients.
