Nvidia Corp. said on Sunday it is launching an “independent investigation” into reports that its founder and Chief Executive Jensen Huang had been targeted by a foreign intelligence plot, shortly after he admitted he “had been intimate” with a Singapore-based executive who U.S. officials accuse of spying for China.

In response to the allegations, the Republican-led foreign affairs and intelligence committee of the U.S. Congress has asked Huang (pictured, right) to testify this week at a closed-door briefing on the chipmaker’s “security protocols against foreign adversary espionage.” The request came after the New York Times reported last month that the CEO had been targeted in a Chinese espionage operation.

The accused spy is a woman called Alice Huang or Huang Le (left), of no relation to the Nvidia CEO. Alice Huang is the CEO of a Singapore-based data center company called Megaspeed, which had previously been suspected of smuggling Nvidia’s high-end graphics processing units to China, prompting U.S. officials to begin monitoring her. Those officials have apparently determined that Alice Huang is an asset of the Chinese intelligence services, tasked with passing commercial secrets back to Beijing.

In a statement earlier today, Nvidia’s board of directors said that while it has no reason to believe that either U.S. national security or the company’s secrets were compromised, its inquiry will examine all available information. “The Board prioritizes U.S. national and economic security, which is paramount to the interests of Nvidia and its shareholders,” the statement said. “The Board has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team and will provide further updates as appropriate.”

The company added that Huang supports the investigation into what happened and has vowed to cooperate fully.

A report by Axios earlier today cited a draft email written by Huang to company employees, in which he admitted to having an illicit romantic relationship with Alice Huang and took full responsibility for his actions. “I was unfaithful to my wife,” Huang wrote. “My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did.”

U.S. intelligence chiefs will be concerned because Nvidia’s powerful chips sit at the center of the artificial intelligence boom and give America a critical advantage over its geopolitical rivals. The company’s dominance of AI computing means that Huang is one of the most influential people in the industry, and he has forged close ties with the Trump administration.

The alleged spy reportedly tried to take advantage of Huang’s close links to America’s policymakers. Not only was she tasked with learning more about the company’s secrets, but also persuading Huang to lobby for the company to be allowed to ship its most advanced processors to China. It’s not clear how much influence she was able to exert on Huang, but last year he successfully petitioned the Trump administration to allow more GPUs to be exported to China. He later struck a deal to sell limited numbers of the company’s second-most powerful chips to China.

So far, nothing has been said of Huang potentially losing his job or being removed from the company, but Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives told Gizmodo that such an outcome is possible. “This will add risk to the stock as he is so important to the Nvidia story and strategy globally,” the analyst said.

The investigation follows a rough week for technology firms on Wall Street, which have weathered a sell-off that began earlier this month and gained traction after a series of disappointing earnings results in recent days. So far this month, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index has lost almost $1 trillion in value

Nvidia’s stock has fallen 21% over the last month and is now basically flat in the year to date, with its market capitalization sitting at just over $4.5 trillion, down from its peak of just over $5.7 trillion in October 2026.

Photos: LinkedIn/Nvidia