US President Donald Trump on Saturday backed Nvidia’s Jensen Huang after a report said he had been a target of a suspected Chinese intelligence operation, saying that the United States was looking “very closely” at the issue.
US intelligence agencies recently found that the Megaspeed executive was working for Chinese intelligence and passing information to Beijing. I mean, unless we find out something to the contrary, I’ve always found Jensen Huang to be very above board.
“We’re going to check it out very closely,” the president added. When asked if he would retain Huang as an advisor, Trump said: “I would like to say yes. “But you know, you’re dealing with a very complex issue,” Trump added, according to AFP. In a statement to NYT, Megaspeed said its “current leadership” takes the matter “extremely seriously and is committed to getting to the facts behind these allegations”. A person familiar with Megaspeed’s operations said that Alice has become less active in the company in the wake of American investigations.
A New York Times report on Tuesday said Huang might have been the target of a suspected Chinese intelligence operation through his association with Alice Huang, also known as Huang Le, a Chinese national and senior executive at Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed.
Huang has advised Trump on AI policy and was among tech CEOs who joined the US leader on his visit to Beijing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in May. The Taiwan-born businessman has lobbied the Trump administration to ease restrictions on Nvidia chip sales to China.
Trump approved sales of older-generation Nvidia chips to China last year in exchange for a share of the revenue but rejected a proposal to allow sales of more powerful chips.
