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The tech world spent the day digesting the shocking news that Jensen Huang, the charismatic CEO of multi-trillion-dollar company Nvidia, who wears his trademark leather jacket, is under investigation by his company for allegedly having an extramarital affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
This is definitely not what we expected to happen in 2026.
Jen-Hsun Huang is reported to have been in a relationship with Alice Huang (the two are not related). Huang Le was the CEO of a data center company headquartered in Singapore. The ripple effects of this relationship reach far beyond Huang’s family—who are undoubtedly going through emotional ups and downs—and bring us to the crossroads of technology, geopolitics and national security.
Simply put, this matter involves the fierce competition between the United States and China, and whether Huang Renxun not only betrayed his wife, but also betrayed the United States.
The United States is in a fierce race with China to develop the most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models.
As US President Trump said: "Whoever wins AI, wins." He believes that the country with more dominant AI technology will benefit the most from it and eventually become the most powerful country in the world. He may have a point.
Nvidia happens to produce the best AI chips in the industry, and demand is so great that the company is overwhelmed.
The company sets its prices accordingly: its latest generation of data center equipment starts at £37,000 (about $50,000) a piece. A medium or large data center may require hundreds of pieces of this equipment.
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The U.S. government initially imposed an export ban on Nvidia's newer models to prevent China from taking advantage of their superior performance to develop technology. Later, Washington relaxed the relevant regulations slightly.
However, there is news that Huang Le's company Megaspeed may have been involved in smuggling these chips into China when she was in charge of the company. Bloomberg reported that Megaspeed purchased billions of dollars worth of Nvidia technology products in November 2025. Megaspeed denies using the products illegally.
As for Huang himself, he has been lobbying hard for the United States and China to relax export restrictions. Contrary to mainstream opinion, he believes that the AI race is not an important matter, and China's reliance on American technology is not necessarily a bad thing.
In an interview with the BBC last year, he said: "President Trump wants the United States to win, President Xi Jinping wants China to win, and it is possible for both of them to achieve their goals at the same time."
However, what is certain is that neither country necessarily sees it this way.
Nvidia must now try to answer some thorny questions, including whether Huang Le had special access to the company's latest technology, intentionally or unintentionally, through Huang, and if so, whether she shared it with Beijing or others.
We don’t know when the relationship between the two began or ended, but there are a large number of photos and videos showing that Huang Jen-Hsun and Huang Le attended different events together. It is indeed possible that the two spent a lot of time together, and Huang Renxun also talked about his habit of always paying attention to work.
China denies that Huang Le ever engaged in espionage.
Economic espionage is not new, nor is it unique to China. However, many Western countries point out that China engages in such activities on a large scale, using technological tools and infiltrating intelligence personnel in different institutions, including private companies, to collect economic intelligence.
If China obtains a sufficient number of Nvidia chips and uses them to develop technology, or even disassemble the chips and study how to make similar products on its own, it will make the Trump administration extremely angry. Washington is trying to strictly protect U.S. AI technology and prevent other countries from easily obtaining it.
Some AI models have not even been provided to the UK-based AI Safety Institute on the grounds that they may be too dangerous to share. The United States does not want anyone to seize technological opportunities or abuse its innovations.
Another issue that could cause a stir is any confidential national security information that Huang may have had access to.
He is at the top of the American elite and is one of the few people who may be able to walk into the White House and have tea with Trump without an appointment. He has influence, connections and a strong circle of friends, so it is possible that he had access to some confidential information.
Nvidia stated that there is currently no evidence that Huang Renxun has leaked any information to the outside world, and the company has also launched an internal investigation. Huang Renxun said he would cooperate with the investigation and hoped to keep his position.
But if nothing else, he has violated Nvidia's own code of conduct. The code states that company members should not enter into personal relationships with clients.
But can he stay in office?
Currently, Huang Renxun still has the support of Nvidia’s board of directors and Trump. Trump described him as an "upstanding man" and speculated there must be a reason behind the incident. In other words, Trump has no plans to distance himself from his tech friend.
Although NVIDIA's stock price fell, it did not plummet significantly, indicating that shareholders did not evacuate on a large scale due to this crisis, nor did they lose confidence in Huang Renxun's leadership.
If NVIDIA's strength weakens, it will undoubtedly slow down the development of the entire AI industry.
Moreover, if Huang is forced to leave, there does not seem to be a natural successor waiting to take over the company.
Jen-Hsun Huang has been at the helm of Nvidia for more than 30 years. To many people, Huang is almost Nvidia itself. He led the company through many crises, and it was he who decided to shift the company's focus to AI before AI became a hot trend.
He was known as a strict boss who expected his employees to work long hours and meet extremely high standards. It is said that he has called all employees to meetings many times and publicly reprimanded individual employees who made mistakes. He once explained that he did this to prevent others from making the same mistake, but you can also imagine how the person involved felt at the time.
As he awaits the results of the investigation, Huang can only hope that, although he has never tolerated the mistakes of his colleagues in the past, his colleagues will be magnanimous and tolerate his own mistakes this time.
And he must also face an ironic fact: what finally got him into trouble may not be some high-tech sophisticated trap, but the oldest method-the honey trap.
This article was originally written in English. We used artificial intelligence to assist in translation and was reviewed by BBC journalists before publication. Learn more about how we use artificial intelligence.
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