The case of the "Chinese spy" at Nvidia unfolds on the eve of the APEC summit.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang lost at least $7.4 billion after an investigation into the details of his relationship with a woman accused of spying for China began. The businessman's fortune fell to $154.7 billion during the first half hour of trading on Monday and remained at that level in the afternoon. As a result, he dropped from eighth to tenth place in Forbes' billionaires ranking. In turn, the company's own shares fell more than 6% in premarket trading in the US and reached a low of $176.26.
Nvidia is an American technology company, one of the world's largest developers of graphics processing units (GPU) and chips for artificial intelligence systems.
CEO of Nvidia Corp. Jensen Huang is suspected of having "close ties" to Mega Speed boss Alice Huang, who US intelligence agencies believe was recruited by China's Ministry of State Security. The "New York Times" (NYT) writes about this, citing a memo that was circulated among the administration officials of US President Donald Trump. According to the Financial Times, the pair were connected not only by close ties, but by a romantic relationship.
According to the NYT, US intelligence believes the PRC recruited a woman to collect information on the head of Nvidia and get information about US AI chips. Also, apparently, the woman had to influence the company in order to get permission to supply chips to China.
Mega Speed is building data centers in Southeast Asia, and leasing capacity to China's Alibaba. The network of companies associated with Alice Huang is concentrated in Shanghai and Zhejiang Province. According to the NYT, the structure has financial ties to the Chinese military department through investments in the cybersecurity subsidiary of China Electronics Technology Group, one of the largest military equipment manufacturers in the PRC.
These are the "Teacher Row" at the center of the technological wars.