Why is Nvidia’s Jensen Huang at the centre of a US-China spy scandal?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is facing questions over allegations that a Chinese businesswoman with whom he had a romantic relationship was gathering intelligence for Beijing. Nevertheless, Nvidia’s board announced an independent investigation into whether the 63-year-old Taiwan-US dual national had been targeted by a foreign intelligence operation after media reports linking him to Alice Huang, a former executive at a Singapore-based data centre company.

“The Board prioritizes US national and economic security, which is paramount to the interests of NVIDIA and its shareholders,” it said in a statement , adding that Jensen Huang fully backs the review. After the revelations, Nvidia – whose market capitalisation of $4.5 trillion is higher than the gross domestic product (GDP) of Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy – saw its stock price tumble by more than 4 percent in trading overnight into Monday.