Beijing fears that the spying scandal surrounding the head of Nvidia will become a reason for new technology sanctions in the US - Bloomberg.
The PRC leadership calls on Washington not to use the scandal surrounding Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and suspicions of Chinese espionage to further tighten restrictions on the supply of American technology to the PRC. In a speech on November 12, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the US should stop spreading the "Chinese espionage narrative" as an excuse for imposing technological restrictions. According to her, China's scientific and technological development is based on its own innovation and open international cooperation. Beijing also emphasized that it is holding talks with the American side ahead of the upcoming meeting of the leaders of the two countries.
The scandal erupted following reports that a woman with whom Huang was romantically involved may be cooperating with Chinese intelligence. The head of Nvidia himself admitted to the fact of adultery, but there was no public evidence that he knew about the woman's possible intelligence activity or passed on secret information to her. China denies the spying allegations as baseless, and Nvidia has launched an internal investigation, saying it has no reason to believe US national security or the company's company secrets are at risk.
The main geopolitical significance of the scandal is that it could provide Washington hardliners with further arguments for expanding export controls on advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence technologies. Beijing fears that the investigation will become a reason to limit not only the direct supply of Nvidia chips, but also remote access by Chinese companies to computing power abroad. Against this background, Chinese technology companies are already trying to maintain access to foreign data centers with pre-Nvidia equipment.