I’ve been getting some version of the same reply every time I write about Nvidia. Who cares who Jensen Huang was seeing? Just don’t tank my 401(k).
Now Huang has resigned, and Nvidia is looking for a new CEO. That's a major development, but it doesn't answer the questions about possible Chinese intelligence access to the company's technology or whether restricted chips wound up where they weren't supposed to. If anything, the leadership shakeup makes those questions more pressing.
I like a good day in the market as much as anybody. I also think it’s a little nuts to wave off a possible Chinese intelligence operation because you like the stock. If you own Nvidia, you’ve got a financial stake in who gets a look at its technology and who is bypassing rules to sell it. There’s a national security stake too: the chips that train AI models can also sharpen China’s military and surveillance capabilities. The people running the company ought to be able to tell you how they protect it.
Back in the spring, a classified memo was making the rounds among senior Trump administration officials. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly oversaw its drafting. According to Joe Cunningham, U.S. intelligence officials believed China’s Ministry of State Security had recruited Alice Huang to gather information on Jensen Huang. She’s back in Beijing. China says she wasn’t a spy. If she gave Beijing anything, we still don’t know what it was.
Nearly $2 billion. That’s how much a Malaysian subsidiary of Megaspeed reportedly spent on advanced Nvidia products. Alice Huang helped found Megaspeed, a Singapore company, as RedState Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar noted in her reporting. For months, Commerce agents tried to find out whether some of the restricted chips went on to China. Justice took over the case. By the time the affair made headlines, investigators had already spent months trying to follow the hardware.
In a separate case I covered, six pallets of Nvidia gear left Oakland for Fort Worth and never made it. Police hadn’t even said what kind of hardware was on those pallets when I filed the story. It’s a small example of the same question: when valuable hardware moves, somebody should be able to say where it went.
There are legal ways to sell some of these chips to Chinese buyers. Take Nvidia’s H200. Since January, Commerce has reviewed applications to export it and similar chips to China case by case if applicants meet certain conditions. Those include screening customers and having the chips tested independently in the United States. I’m fine with having that fight over which chips we sell. But once you approve a sale to one customer, you’d better have some way of finding out if the chips wind up with somebody else.
A shipment is one of many ways that sensitive technology can get out. Federal rules make it so that the release of controlled technology or source code to a foreigner here in the United States is treated as an export. Those kinds of details matter. What information was shared? Who received the information? Did the federal government have to authorize this shipment or the sharing? So far, the public reports leave wide holes and gaps in the answers to these questions.
Nvidia's independent directors are investigating with assistance from outside counsel. Before resigning Thursday, Huang pledged to cooperate with the inquiry. Here’s what the board said when it announced the inquiry:
“While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board's inquiry will examine all available information.”
The board has another problem on its hands. As Ward reported, Jensen Huang is also said to have had a relationship with an executive who reported to him. Nvidia can deal with that in the boardroom. The people trying to find out where the chips went still need answers.
Three Republican House chairmen had already requested a private briefing from Huang on November 18. The chairmen’s letter says: “It is vital that Congress determines the extent to which U.S. national security has been placed at risk.”
Megaspeed bought a lot of hardware. Somebody at Nvidia had to approve the sales, and I’d like to know whether anybody went back later to see where the equipment wound up. Whether Huang appears as Nvidia's former CEO or provides answers through some other arrangement, Congress should ask what company information Alice Huang could access and whether there's a record of what she actually obtained.
I’d be happy to find out the chips went to the buyers they were supposed to and that Nvidia’s secrets stayed put. Show us how the company knows. If my money’s in Nvidia, I want the people running it to be able to tell me where its chips went and who got a look at the technology behind them.
