House Republicans ask Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to brief Congress on Chinese spy ties

The request to Huang

Three House Republicans who chair committees asked Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang to take part in a closed-door briefing on 18 November. The request came in a letter from Brian Mast, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, John Moolenaar, who leads the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Rick Crawford, who leads the Select Committee on Intelligence. The letter is dated 4 November and was made public on Thursday, 5 November. It asks Huang to discuss his interactions with Alice Huang, an executive at Megaspeed, along with Nvidia's security protocols against espionage by foreign adversaries. The letter does not specify which information the lawmakers have in mind, and Nvidia has not confirmed whether Huang will attend.

The intelligence allegations

The New York Times reported that US intelligence officials had determined Alice Huang, a Chinese citizen, was funneling information to Beijing, and that Jensen Huang had developed a close relationship with her. The paper described Megaspeed as a Singapore-based cloud company that has bought billions of dollars of Nvidia chips, and said the US government suspected it of helping China evade US restrictions. According to the Times, citing people familiar with the surveillance, President Donald Trump was briefed roughly a year before the reporting and chose not to act. The Wall Street Journal later reported that officials in at least three countries worried Alice Huang could be passing information to the Chinese government, possibly including sensitive details about Nvidia chips. The Times also reported that Huang had not received a "defensive briefing", which intelligence agencies usually, though not always, give to possible espionage targets.

Nvidia's response

Nvidia has rejected the allegations. The company said Huang's dealings with Alice Huang were ordinary business interactions, and that its regional cloud customers receive routine commercial information rather than sensitive trade secrets. Its spokesman John Rizzo declined to say whether Huang would appear before the committees, but said the chief executive travels with a security team. Nvidia added that it was confident Washington would have alerted it if it considered a person a threat to US industry, and that it often receives updates from the government about people of concern. Beijing has previously described the claims that it was spying on Nvidia as groundless speculation.

“Our chief executive has an outstanding security team that accompanies him where needed.”

“Meetings with customers are part of a CEO's job. Jensen talks with thousands of customer executives every year.”

What comes next

The three committees have set 18 November for the joint closed-door briefing. Their letter describes PRC infiltration of US technology as core to the investigative work of the three committees this Congress. The request is voluntary, and Nvidia has not said whether Huang will attend. So far the allegations come from reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The timeline below sets out the dates in the request.