[Anchor]

A U.S. media report claiming that a woman closely acquainted with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is a Chinese spy has sparked a major controversy. The Chinese government strongly pushed back, calling it an absurd smear.

Our Beijing correspondent Han Sang-woo has the report.

[Reporter]

The New York Times reported on the 29th, citing multiple sources, that NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang appears to have been the target of a Chinese espionage operation.

The woman identified as having approached Jensen Huang is named Alice Huang.

She is known to be an executive at Megaspeed, a data firm headquartered in Singapore, and has maintained a close relationship with Jensen Huang since at least prior to June 2024.

Megaspeed has been under investigation by U.S. authorities since 2024 on suspicion of smuggling some NVIDIA chips, which are banned from export to China, into the country, according to The New York Times.

In particular, the report pointed out that a Malaysian company trading with this firm purchased 4.8 billion dollars—equivalent to about 6.4 trillion won—worth of artificial intelligence equipment, including NVIDIA chips, from June 2024 to February of this year, which is an unusually large transaction given the scale of the company.

Megaspeed completely denied the allegations, stating that it has complied with export control regulations and is cooperating with the investigation by U.S. authorities.

NVIDIA also drew a line through a spokesperson, stating, "Jensen Huang meets with thousands of customer executives every year," and adding, "If a specific individual were determined to be a threat to U.S. industry, the U.S. government would have informed the company."

The Chinese government likewise strongly pushed back, calling it a smear.

[Voice / Guo Jiakun, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson : The report in question is nothing more than sheer speculation and an attempt to smear China.]

Amid the U.S.-China AI hegemony conflict, espionage suspicions surrounding NVIDIA have flared up, raising the likelihood that this issue will be discussed at the upcoming APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, in November.

(Video editing: Kim Byung-jik, Design: Park Tae-young)