According to an October 29 investigation by The New York Times, U.S. intelligence officials determined that Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman with "close ties" to Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang (no relation), was passing information to Beijing. President Donald Trump was briefed roughly a year ago, the Times reported, but chose not to act on the intelligence. The Times investigation revealed the following:
The previous reporting about Ms. Huang by The Times described her meteoric and somewhat mysterious rise. A Chinese businesswoman and investor, she eventually became a top official with Megaspeed, which the Commerce Department, toward the end of the Biden administration, began to suspect was helping China evade U.S. prohibitions and gain access to the computing power of Nvidia chips.
Surveillance continued, but Jensen Huang reportedly received no formal warning. Meanwhile, he remained an influential adviser to the administration, lobbying successfully to ease restrictions on AI-chip sales to China.
On November 8, Nvidia's board announced an independent investigation, saying it had no reason to believe company secrets or U.S. national security had been compromised.
Trump, meanwhile, publicly defended Huang, saying, "I haven't heard that he's done anything wrong. He dealt with somebody but, you know, so does everybody else."
Intelligence officials can have legitimate reasons for keeping investigations secret.
But that leaves a troubling question: How could Washington make national security the overriding justification for America's AI race while apparently declining to confront a potential intelligence threat involving one of its most powerful participants?
And why did it take so long for that question to be asked publicly?
